Hi All,
I am moving into a new apartment next month that has a dual gas/convection oven and a convection microwave. I have never used one before. Does anybody have convection baking advice?

Any comments are appreciated. I'm excited to learn how to use it!

Till I renovate my kitchen (I hope soon), I am baking in convection microwave. It can be done, but is better for cookies than for cakes.
I get the best and fastest gingerbread cookies done, which are pain with my mothers oven.

My convection MW has heat element on top only and the "convection" part is this and the turntable.
I do bake cakes there, but it was pain to learn. The biggest one was 10 in. I need to go way down with the temperature (max. 320F) and bake the cakes longer. Because of the heat from top only, heating pin doesn't help much. I still preheat, because almost all my cakes are classic sponge (eggs, flour, sugar only).

My advice is start with low temperature, test often at the end of the expected baking time and allow time and effort for the learning curve.

With the dual gas/convection oven I can't help you. I suspect that for cakes would be gas alone better.

I have a convection oven and I find the results unreliable. Through trial and error, I have found a few things to help me. First, if it doesn't automatically lower the temp by 25 degrees when you enter the temp, be sure to do that. The lowest temp mine can do is 325. Second, if the normal cook time is 20 minutes, you should check it at 75%, so in this case, 15 minutes. That is actually in my manual.

The things I noticed is that my cakes cook better when they are out of direct air flow. So the blower is at the back of the oven on the bottom shelf. I cook my cake as close to the door as possible on the highest rack, out of direct air contact. What had happened to me is that the half of the cake closest to the fan would turn brown and the other half would be yellow (on a yellow cake). You can't tell on chocolate. Also, on cupcakes, as they start rising, the air would actually blow the cupcake over so the dome would be like the leaning tower of pisa!!!!

I actually have found it harder to use the convection function on my oven so I am probably going back to using it without convection. But it could just be my brand. Or maybe there is something wrong with my oven.

Good luck!

no it is not your oven i hate mine you have to watch it constantly thanks dorothy from tenn

Thanks. I think I will get in there and just different recipes and see what happens.