Hi everyone!

I was just wondering if anybody knew whether or not it was okay to bake cakes in a convection oven?

I know that it is supposed to cook food up to 30% faster, and I was just thinking about how much time that would save me when I have a lot of baking to do!

Thank you,
Val

Hi Val,

I use a convection oven for everything. I bake 25 degrees lower than the recommended temp tho. As for the time, I am not sure how much time it saves exactly. But I love the convection oven, can bake cookies 3 or 4 trays at a time cos the hot air circulates and bakes everyhting even, my cakes come out more level too.

I don't use the convection option onmy oven when i bake cakes because i feel it dries the tops out too much while the rest of the batter cooks.

CarolAnn; do you find it also dries out the middle of the cake? I know that I usually end up cutting the tops off, so I'm wondering if it would affect the rest of the cake.

I was hoping convection would be okay because it just took me close to 3 hours to bake a simple 8"x3" round cake!!

Maybe it depends on the oven???

It took 3 hours to bake an 8" cake???? OMGosh!! Longest it's ever taken me to get one baked, and it was a big dark chocolate one, was about 1 1/2 hours.
Do you have an oven thermometer in your oven? Always a good idea to have one. There might be something wrong with your oven.

No, when I used to convection for a cake I thought the circulating air would make it bake faster but the air moving just seemed to dry the batter on top before it baked. I wasn't pleased with the results and only glad it wasn't a cake for a customer.

I guess it must be the oven (though it's only a year old), because even baking a 6" round it takes just over 2 hours! Maybe the temperature is REALLY off!!

I dread when I have a really big cake to bake, because I know it's gonna take the whole day!!

Thanks for the advice on the convection!

I have only used convection once for huge 12 x 18 sheet cakes for a bridal festival, and I have to say I LOVED how quickly they were done (like 25 minutes each).

.........

BUT

They were so dry, we threw them out (huge waste!), all 4 of them, and used the ones we'd done in regular ovens. Bleh. I cooked them with the fan on high rather than low (no idea if that would've helped), and they were horribly dry all the way through. I was so mad.

Now I know--I will not, repeat not, be putting convection in when we build me a new kitchen.

Well, I have used the convection oven at my church to bake my cakes, but, LUCKILY we have 2 regular commercial ovens.

I find that they DO dry the tops of the cakes (EVEN ON LOW) and I bake 25 degrees lower and it DOES take less time, but, even with baking strips I waste a LOT of cake because it "Puffs" my cakes too much! Of course, that is the GOAL of the convection oven! Biscuits, cinnamon rolls...AWESOME!! Convection ovens.....not so much!

Just a personal opinion. Unless I'm in a REAL hurry or am baking a 16" cake I use a regular oven!

Beth in KY

I just remodeled my kitchen and put in two full size convection ovens side by side. It is sooo awesome, I baked 8 layers at one time! [using both ovens] I love the way they bake, the tops do puff a little more but I usually level the top anyway.

I bake everything on convection, cakes get baked at 300 for how ever long it takes i do bake with the fan on low. I don't think i have ever used the standard bake option on my oven.

But i do suggest that if you are looking into buy a convection oven for your home and you have never baked in one before that you get a model that gives you the option of a standard bake, then if you don't like the way it treats your cakes you can always deal with what you are used to.

I will say for roasts and stuff like that, there is nothing better then convection.

I am glad I came acrossed this thread bc I too have a convection oven with the opition of regular bake mode. It does seem to take forever to bake a regular cake in convection. Much longer than the box calls for. I do have an oven thermator in there and it reads what I set the oven too, but when the time comes to take the cake out it still isn't cooked. I do lower the temp when cooking convection and when the time comes to take the cake out it isn't cooked all the way. Does this make any sense? Can anyone lend me pointers on this?

I begged hubby to get me a convection oven for our new house because I had heard all this great stuff about them. Mine automatically sets itself to the lower temperature. I really didnt see what all the fuss was about. I wanted it for all my cookies and they DID NOT cook evenly like it says. I haven't dared try a cake yet.