Get to Know Your Oven: Fan, Racks, Preheating and the Grill

The recipe says "30 minutes at 180 °C", you follow it exactly, and the cake either burns or stays raw in the middle. Usually the problem is not you; it is that you have not got to know your oven yet. Every oven has its own personality, and a few small experiments are all it takes to learn it.

Fan or conventional?

• Conventional (top and bottom heat): Heat comes from the top and bottom elements and the air moves naturally. Ideal for delicate bakes such as cakes, biscuits, soufflés and sponges, and for single-tray cooking. The heat is gentler and slower.
• Fan (convection): A fan in the back wall circulates the hot air. Heat spreads more evenly and efficiently, and surfaces brown and dry faster. Great for roast vegetables, chicken, potatoes, börek and cooking several trays at once.

Golden rule: Unless the recipe says otherwise, lower the temperature by about 20 °C for a fan oven. A recipe that says 200 °C conventional becomes 180 °C fan. Most Turkish recipes do not say which mode they mean; they usually assume conventional.

Some ovens also have a bottom-heat-only setting, useful for crisping the base of a tray börek or a pizza.

Choosing the rack

The temperature is not the same everywhere in the oven. In a conventional oven the top is hotter, while the bottom gets more heat from the base.

• Middle rack: Cakes, biscuits, börek, oven dishes. When in doubt, the middle is always safe.
• Top rack: Dishes you want browned on top, gratins, a last-minute burst of colour. This is where the grill works.
• Bottom rack: Pizza and pastries you want crisp underneath, a large bird or long-cooking casseroles.

Turning the tray front to back halfway through evens out the hotter back that most ovens have.

Why preheating matters

Anything that needs to rise or brown, such as yeast dough, cakes, biscuits and börek, should meet the right temperature from the very first minute. A cake in a cold oven rises unevenly, biscuits spread and börek soaks up fat.

• Switch the oven on at least 10-15 minutes ahead.
• When the indicator light goes off the air may be at temperature but the walls may not be; give it another 5 minutes.
• Do not keep opening the door. Each time, the oven loses several minutes' worth of heat. Use the oven light to check.

For casseroles and braises preheating is less critical, but it does shorten the cooking time.

The oven thermometer: a small investment

Home oven dials are often wrong; being 10-20 °C off is very common. An oven thermometer, a small, cheap dial that hangs from the rack, solves the problem.

1. Place it in the centre of the middle rack.
2. Set the oven to 180 °C and wait 20 minutes.
3. Read it. If it says 200 °C, your oven runs 20 degrees hot; set it lower from now on.

To see how the heat is spread, try the "toast test": lay slices of sandwich bread across a tray and bake at 180 °C for a few minutes. The slices that brown fastest reveal your oven's hot spots.

The grill setting

The grill runs only the top element at very high heat. That intense heat from above is for quick browning and colour.

• Browning the top of gratins, mücver or baked pasta.
• Charring aubergines and peppers; turn them when the skins blacken.
• Cooking chicken wings, skewers or köfte from above.

Under the grill, food goes from golden to burnt in minutes. Stay close, and check your oven's manual for whether the door should be open or closed.

Quick checklist

• Does the recipe say fan or conventional? If not, go 20 °C lower on fan.
• Has the oven preheated for at least 10-15 minutes?
• Stick to the middle rack unless there is a reason not to.
• Turn the tray halfway.
• Buy an oven thermometer and learn your oven's real temperature.

Once you know your oven, you will start adjusting recipe times to suit it. That is when a recipe becomes a guide rather than a command.