Black & Decker Convention Oven Review

In the beginning, the only thing I knew about Convection Ovens was that my grandmother owns one.  She really doesn't use it much, except for when she wants to make something like a single pie and doesn't want to heat up her regular oven.  The rest of the year, her Convection Oven can be found tucked away in a corner of her basement, near the washing machine.  I've never been one to mind heating up my huge monster of an oven so buying one wasn't even a consideration for me.  Then things changed.  Bad turn after bad turn landed my husband and I living with my parents and in a situation where I had a kitchen...but no stove.  No stove means no oven and since baking is pretty much my religion, that was a serious problem.  It was time for me to start looking for a solution.

So, armed with my debit card and determined not to come home without a convection oven, I set out.  I had originally done some research online and I was liking what I saw.  The problem was that all the ovens I really liked were available ONLY online.  I figured there had to be something SOMEWHERE that I could use.  And, after searching a few different places, I finally found one that would work for me.

One thing you should understand is that technically my convection oven is a TOASTER convection oven.  That being said, most toaster ovens are meant only for toast, bagels or some combination thereof.  What I needed was something much larger.  I eventually found this Black & Decker Convection Oven and I am so glad I did!

This oven is large enough to cook pretty much anything I need.  It comes with a 12" pizza pan, a shallow baking pan and an extra insert for the pan so that you can cook meat on top and have all the grease drip down through holes into the bottom.  While this was great, I needed to be able to do more.  Since I bake a great many of my dinners, and I knew the pans I had at home would be too large, I had to make sure I could buy pans that would be big enough for my needs and still fit.  Your standard everyday cake pan will fit, as long as it doesn't have handles on the sides.  I also found a few different sizes of corningware that also worked.

Now, when I first started using this convection oven, I had a few missteps.  Being used to using a regular oven and not thinking that this new one would be any different, I made one of my usual meals, popped it in and set the timer.  I usually check on my meat about half way through the cook time and when I came back, I wasn't prepared to find that it was almost done.  It was so quickly done, in fact, that I had to scramble to get the rest of my meal put together.

I've owned this oven for about 7 months now and I've learned both the good and the bad along the way.   I mainly just use the bake option but I did try the convection feature once.  Honestly, I saw no difference in the cook time.  Just baking something in this oven will cut your cook time by about a fourth to half your normal cook time so be prepared!  If you don't keep a close eye on whatever you have cooking, you run the risk of drying it out or burning whatever is in there.  Pies are another thing to be careful about; the crust will cook a great deal faster than the filling in the pie so you'll need to keep a close eye on it and make sure to cover the crust with foil when it looks about done.

The black and decker itself is a bit bulky so be prepared to find a place for it.  I've just been keeping it on one corner of my kitchen table.  I don't know how big other people's tables are, but in relation to mine it takes up a little less than a fourth of the table itself.  There are a couple of mounts on the back so if you have the wall space, you could just mount it and not worry about the loss of counter or table space at all.

One thing I love about this oven is that it preheats amazingly fast.  In a matter of a couple of minutes, the oven can be up to 450 degrees and I'm good to go.  There is an automatic digital timer as well that automatically sets itself for 30 minutes once the preheat temperature has been reached.  You can always add more time to the timer once it has been preheated.  That's one thing to watch for; it took me a while before I stopped forgetting that the oven just wouldn't stay on for more than half an hour.

You also need to be really careful while the oven is on; the sides and top get extremely hot and its really easy to burn yourself if you're not careful.  Take it from me, let my burns be your lesson, you don't need to do it for yourself!

Over all, this was a great purchase.  I only paid about $50 for this Black & Decker Convection Oven and it was well worth it.  I make everything in it from dinner to deserts and various other baked goods.  Keep an eye on it for the first few uses so that you can see how the cooking differs from a regular oven.  You may end up liking it so much you use it whenever you can.  Just be prepared to adjust the way you cook and watch the heat!