Oven temperature query - Xmas cake

[lecky]

Hi,
I have just bought a new oven and not sure on the length of cooking time.
My old oven was a Bosch and I cooked Xmas cakes on 'conventional' setting at 140 degrees for a total of 3 and a half to 4 hours.

This new multi function oven (Bosch), recommends for rich fruit cakes the 3D hot air feature and to bake at 140 degrees. But .. the length of cooking time is somewhat shorter at 3 hours.

I am a bit confused with this 3D cooking as I thought hot air temperature setting would normally be less than conventional.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Yvonne

 

[Andy M.]

Your terms are a little different but I'm assuming the hot air feature uses a fan to circulate the air in the oven. If so, it's normal for the cooking time to be reduced. That's one of the benefits of the feature. That feature is called a convection oven.

 

[lecky]

Hi Andy,
3D hot air ' a fan in the rear panel distributes the heat from the ring heating element evenly inside the oven'.

But shouldn't the temperature be less with fan say 120 degrees? Instruction manual very generalised!
Thanks
Yvonne

 

[C-Mart]

I attempted to use our "Convection" feature when we got our new oven, and I was surprised to find that cookies actually took as much as 5 minutes longer than without the convection turned on. I eventually came to find out that ours is not a "True Convection". Our oven has the fan to circulate the air, but no heating element around it... therefore it is actually bringing cool "outside" air directly into the oven, lowering the temperature and causing longer cooking times.

The instructions that came with ours state that the temperature should be lowered, but I am not sure by how much. I wouldn't go 20 degrees lower however, maybe 5-10 degrees lower.

 

[Andy M.]

Yvonne, I'd do some test baking to determine how your oven works. Start with the instructions that came with the oven and adjust from there. What other people do with their ovens won't necessarily apply to yours.

You should be comfortable with how your oven works before you commit to special occasion baking.