I saw the pizza oven, too, Jovy...and I was wondering the same thing. I used to work at a pizzeria and know the temperatures were like 550 plus...I wonder how they bake their cakes...Unless it just takes less time.

I baked a 14 inch round cake for my two granddaughter's b-day party last Saturday. Because my time was cut short being in the hospital for two days with my mom I left it as a sheet instead of torting and filling it. I also made the mistake of using the convect feature on my oven to bake it. I have made several cakes this big and had no problems, using a flower nail in the center. It just about made me sick to cut this cake and see that it wasn't cooked clear through. There was a dense layer at the bottom which tells me the convection caused it to bake on the top and sides and appear to be done when in fact it wasn't. I baked it just over at an hour. It had butter and cream in it but I'ved used the recipe time and again and never had this problem. I will never again risk this happening. I'm through with convection as far as baking cakes is concerned. I would have been absolutely sick if this had been for a customer. As it is most of my family are dumb cluck guys who probably didn't even notice anything different and the gals who heard me comment about it said it tasted great. That was the don't tell the pathetic boob her cake bombed because we love her thing though, cause the icing was great but the cake was yucky.

You should still use your flower nail even with the confection oven. Especially with larger cakes. But you also have to have the cake on the bottom rack so that the air can circulate like lorimoms said. And like she said, you will never go back. I dont even use the just bake setting on my oven. I dont remember EVER using it!! lol I even use confection for my roasts and stuff.
Try another cake but this time use the nail and make sure its a test cake and not for customer. Im sure once you get the hang of it, you will like it.

i use convection on my little tiny toaster oven when doing garlic bread and such....my husband tought me to just lower the temp 25 degrees.

now that we've moved into our new house, the main oven is a frigidaire gallerie, and has a convection option. i'm nervous about using it for anything, especially cakes, because i don't know the timing...is there some rule of thumb to figure out the baking time for items vs the time it says in the cookbook?

You lower the tempature by 25 degrees like your toaster oven. And usually for cookies its like a couple of minutes longer. But you should of got a book with your oven and it should tell you how to convert recipes for confection. But the best thing is when you make a batch of cookies and you can put three trays in at once! It makes holiday baking go soooo much faster!

Oh I know! I love doing rib roasts in it!

Oh my goodness, I feel so silly. I purchased a new oven with a convection setting when I remodeled my house two years ago. With everything that has been going on in my life I totally forgot that I had a convection setting on my oven. It all clicked in when I saw this forum post. I think I might just try it!

lol, Man, I bet your kicking yourself now after making the cookies and putting one tray in at a time and it taking all day!!!

This is helpful as next year I hope to get a double oven/range (freestanding). The convection ones are like $400-$500 more and I wasn't sure if I would want that or not. Sounds like I won't....I mostly bake cakes (and nobody is going to notice if my turkey is convection or not every year at Thanksgiving!) so this is really good to know so I can save a little money.

Come to think of it, the cakes baked at the catering place I worked at, in a convection oven...weren't that great.

Sounds like some really interesting information. I guess when we get our first convection oven, the first thing we'll do is READ THE MANUAL!!! LOL

Paul (& Peter)