When you are using a convection oven, you would need to adjust the recipes. If you don't adjust the recipe correctly, you can end up with burnt or overcooked food. Baked foods such as bread, cookies, and cakes are most susceptible to this.
Additionally, convection ovens tend to be more expensive than traditional ovens, which may not be feasible for some budgets. The fan motor may also require more energy, leading to higher electricity bills. The cons of convection cooking may include a learning curve, recipe adjustment, and higher cost.
As others have said, some dishes/baked goods can come out wrong in a convection oven, due to the air current and the drying effect it can also have. Most notably are things like Souffles or Macarons, where they need a slow, steady, even heat for them to slowly, and steadily rise.
Professional chefs swear by the advantages of convection ovens. That's because it cooks food slightly differently. But what is a fan oven and when can you use it? Let's take a look.
If you set the oven to convection bake at 350 degrees F it will run at 350. If your recipe calls for 350 degrees F for say, a roast, you'll need to lower the temp to 325 degrees F to compensate for the air racing around in the oven.
The main differences between convection bake and regular bake are the cooking speed, temperature and heat distribution, and the end result. Convection baking is often faster and provides a more consistent bake across multiple racks.
Adjust Recipes for Convection Cooking or Baking
For example, if your recipe instructs you to bake at 350°F for 60 minutes, you'll convert this to 325°F and begin checking at 45 minutes.
The Usage of Parchment Paper
A seemingly harmless sheet of parchment paper can quickly become a baking disaster in a convection oven. The force of the fan can lift the paper, causing your cookies or other baked goods to topple over.
Convection is good for:
Roasting ham, turkey, roast-ready beef cuts, and similar meats. Roasting vegetables and potatoes for an extra crisp. Cookies and muffins—especially when you have a big batch to bake at once. Pies and pastry.
The quick answer is, an air fryer is a simply a smaller convection oven with a catchy name. There is no actual frying going on inside an air fryer—that's because an air fryer cooks food via convection baking. So air fryers are, in essence, convection ovens.
Some recipes will suggest regular bake or convection, but as a general rule, don't use the convection setting for delicate desserts and pastries such as custards, souffle, chiffon and angel food cakes, to name a few.
A convection oven cooks by blowing hot air all around the food with a fan with a vent allowing the air to escape. If the foil blocks or gets too close to the fan or vent, the foil could get so hot that it ends up catching fire.
In contrast, convection ovens have a fan that circulates hot air around the food, resulting in more even cooking and a faster cooking time. This fan also helps to reduce hot spots and promote browning, making it ideal for baking cookies.
The fan becomes a liability around delicate foods that start out as batter and set while cooking. Blowing air on these foods can create lopsided results. Don't use convection when making these foods: Custards and flans.
I prefer to cook this lasagna on convection bake since it is prepared in a very tall pan. It cooks more evenly.
Microwaves typically cook food faster due to their direct heating method. In contrast, OTGs take longer, as they rely on convection heat, which is more suited for baking and roasting rather than rapid heating.
Gas or electric convection ovens use fans to continuously circulate hot air throughout the oven, creating a more uniform temperature—no hot spots—that allows food to brown more evenly than in thermal ovens.
Like paper bowls, paper plates are not designed for oven use due to the flammability of the material. It's best to stick with oven-safe glass, ceramic, or metal cookware.
And when the hot air is circulating, it creates a more consistent temperature throughout the oven. This can reduce — and in some instances eliminate — the need to rotate items from left to right and shuffle pans from higher racks to lower ones to promote even cooking.
PREHEAT oven until thermostat signal light goes out indicating that the oven has reached the desired temperature. The oven should preheat to 350° F. within 10 to 15 minutes. (Note: To conserve energy, DO NOT turn on the oven until absolutely necessary - about 15 minutes before actual cooking is to start.)
At its simplest, a convection uses an oven heating element and a fan to produce more even heat distribution. Unlike conventional ovens, which use radiant heat, convection baking moves air uniformly within the compartment, so users don't have to flip and rotate trays as much (if at all).
If you bake two sheets of cookies in a convection oven there is no need to rotate the pans from the top rack to the bottom rack like you would need to do in a conventional oven. However, if you're cooking only one thing, it's still best to have it on the center rack in the middle of the oven.
While both appliances use fans to circulate heat, many air fryers cook from the top down and do not have a bottom heating element. Convection ovens typically use the oven's main heating element, a fan and a third heating element on True Convection models to distribute heat throughout the oven cavity.
While every oven is going to be a little different, you're basically looking at three ways to turn a conventional-oven recipe into a convection-oven recipe: Reduce cooking temperature by 25 degrees F (about 15 degrees C). Reduce cooking time by 25 percent. Reduce both temperature and time by less than 25 percent.