Fan Ovens

Asked by Jelly Bean. Answered on 16th October 2015

Full question

I bought all the ingredients for the great sounding Banan Bread and followed the recipe carefully - but - as is far too often the case - did not know if I should subtract from the cooking temperature for my fan assisted oven. Anyway, the bread was still raw two hours later (as I reduced the temp) and I had to bin it. I have ordered Nigella's new book but it is going straight back if there is no mention of heating temperatures for fan ovens!

There are an awful lot of cookbooks out there with some great recipes. It occurred to me though that in particular would they all be inclined to use the same type of oven: conventional, fan, or fan assisted? I ask this question because depending on the type of oven used one might have to increase or decrease temperature. Is there a conventional way of testing a recipe? Kevin

Our answer

Nigella's books, in common with the majority of cookbooks, gives oven temperatures for conventional (ie not fan-assisted or convection) ovens. This is the usual format for most recipes and if fan oven tempertures are given, then it is usually alongside the conventional temperatures. However as ovens vary the fan oven adjustments can be different, so Nigella prefers to suggest to readers to refer to their oven handbook for the adjustment vs conventional ovens. As fan ovens are becoming increasingly popular, Nigella has advised in Simply Nigella that she uses temperatures for a conventional electric oven (with the gas equivalents). This clarification can be found in the "Introduction" chapter.

However if the fan oven was adjusted by reducing the temperature for the Banana Bread (from Domestic Goddess and on the Nigella website) then this would be normal when converting from conventional to fan ovens. So if the bread was not baked after 2 hours then there may be another reason, such as the adjustment being too large or the pan being placed too low in the oven (again the oven handbook should give advice as to the best shelf position for cakes).