Robust oven which should last and bakes well
4/5
Read the manual at your peril - much better to stab at the various buttons until you get the result you want – only way I can save the correct time setting is to turn the left knob to one of the cook options, set the time and then return the knob to off.
To get baking, turn the left dial to the appropriate oven mode – The graphics on the dial are unclear to interpret and the ‘manual’ does help here; then the right dial to the temperature, press ‘start’ - the arrow button - and then wait for the bleep telling you the temperature has been reached – about 10 mins without the preheat option. Put your cake etc in the oven. Press the central arrow to ‘off’ then twice more and the timer and the oven will restart so you will know how long you’ve been cooking. Easier than it sounds when you start cooking. The alarm itself is so feeble I don’t think it’s worth bothering with. I use the one on my phone which follows me around!
It’s great to have an oven with the the flexibility to cook a loaf properly at 250C or more and with steam. Baguettes at 250C in 20 minutes or so, the space for sourdough in a Dutch Oven (which is just a preheated closed steel/iron casserole dish inside the oven to avoid a the leathery crust, and a regular wholemeal loaf at about 200C - all work well. The ‘steam injection’ is no more than a tray of water – in this case poured on the baking sheet which boils away under the cooking bread – the recommended 20DL is an unusual measure = 200ml and will boil away in about 20 minutes and is probably about the right amount but the sheet has capacity to allow you to experiment with a little more than that. I’ve been steaming in an old school fan oven for a decade and it works well so its a bit of an exaggeration to call it a ‘feature’ of the oven. What is a feature is the quad glazed door which barely gets even tepid – excellent when small hands are nearby!
Don’t forget to save a shelf from your own oven and maybe a grill tray cos they have skimped on that with just a single sheet and one shelf! However, this oven is a good solid design and stands every chance of working a hard life for 10 or so years which I will expect of it. 4 stars I think, held back by the logos, the timer and the manual.