Thursday, January 28, 2010

Meet My Oven - The Cheap, Basic Oven from India

My butterscotch blondies recipe is special for two reasons:

1. It was my first step by step recipe
2. I posted pictures of my oven and every other reader of this blog immediately had a gazillion questions about it!

Ok, I tend to exaggerate a bit but in this case, its only a teeny bit. True story.

Considering all the emails I have replied (happily, may I add) on the subject, this post is terribly late. But then, here it is, finally, after a break of 9 days, my longest in a while.

This, is my oven.



And this here, is the list of FAQs. Go crazy folks!

Q. Where did you buy the oven? What's the price?

Amma got this for me from Shah Enterprises in Kottayam, Kerala (that's my hometown). The brand name is OK. I am positive you'd get this in most home appliances stores in Kerala although I am not sure of other places. If anyone has seen or heard of this, please leave a comment.

The price is about Rs. 1200. No, I am not going to convert that into USD for you. Sorry, too lazy.

Q. How big is it?

Hmm.. not that big. Its the size of.. hmm.. ok let me put it this way. An 8x8 tray will fit into it just right. Anything bigger, you will have to maneuver it by tilting the sides, etc. Amma has a bigger one so this is available in various sizes, I am sure.



Q. What's the maximum temperature? Can it bake everything from cakes to bread to cookies?

The max temperature is 220C. Usually, cakes and cookies are backed at 180C. For bread, you need a slightly higher temperature but I have baked plain white bread with very good results. In fact,all the baked good in this site are made in this oven. You can check out the recipe index here.


Q. Does the oven come with a warranty? Is it worth carrying all the way from India to somewhere abroad?

The answer to this really depends on how bad you want that oven. I wanted it real bad because the prices in Singapore for ovens is atrocious. I am used to this since amma has had it for over 20 years. Having said that, this thing works on a filament coil heating system so if the filament gets rusted or broken, it will result in a loose contact which is frustrating, especially while baking. So it depends on your luck on the most part. Some may last only a year but most will go on and on forever.


Good luck and if you have more questions, leave a comment and I will answer them :)

Disclaimer: I am not recommending this oven to anyone. This post is more informational since a lot of you had questions about the oven when I put up pics in the butterscotch blondies step by step recipe page. The oven is very basic, quite small and may not work well for all recipes that need to be baked. However, the ones you see on this blog have all been tried and tested in it so you can safely go ahead!

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