I've heard people talk about using convection ovens and I don't have a clue as to what they really are and whether they would be better than a regular oven for baking cakes, etc. In my former life I was a flight attendant and we had convection ovens (compartments) on the airplanes. I thought they just circulated enough heat to keep the food warm. So, my question is- What is a convection oven? How are they used? Is it better to use as opposed to a traditional electric oven? I ask because I am in the process to upgarding/purchasing equipment.

Thanks!

Convection ovens heat the air and then circulate it around the oven by a high temperature fan. The good circulation cooks the food faster and at lower temperatures. They are good, but take a while to get used to. There is usually a 25-30% temperature reduction and 21% reduction in cooking time.

The added benefit with the circulated heat is that you can put multiple racks of items to be baked in at one time.

In a traditional oven, you may not get even baking if you have 2 or 3 racks of baking sheets in the oven at once. The bottom sheets are blocking the heat from getting to the sheet on the top rack properly.

In a convection oven, since the heat circulates, the top baking sheet gets the same even heat at the one on the bottom and the one in the middle.

In my experience, it's not that the oven bakes your batch faster .... it's that you can bake more batches at once, ergo your overall baking time is shorter.

Thanks for the info! My oven has a convection oven and I have never used it I think I'll whip up some cookies and see how this works lol.