How to Use Whirlpool Oven for Baking and Fix The Common Issues
You tried several times to bake cake or cookies in your Whirlpool oven, but every time it failed you. The problem isn’t in the oven itself; your investment is totally safe. However, you might not be used to how these electric or convection ovens work.
This happens to a lot of people when they purchase a new oven. There are some pre-requirements and rules that you must follow to bring out an evenly baked and well-textured cake out of the oven.
Your search regarding how to use a whirlpool oven for baking has come to an end. I’m going to share some basics as well as tips that will make you an expert baker.
Contents
How to Bake Using a Whirlpool Oven?
First thing to do after you bring an oven in your house is to read the user manual to get introduced to the basics of an oven. You will learn how to turn on and off, move the racks, how to operate, how to set the temperature and other basic operations.
Temperature and Preheating the Oven
Electric ovens punch the temperature in electrically, and you will get an indication when the inside is ready to embrace your prepared batter and other combination of raw food items.
As new users aren’t familiar with preheating, this is the most common reason why the baked items come unevenly cooked. You must preheat the oven while you prepare the batter. These ovens take more time to preheat than gas ovens to reach the appropriate temperature.
Using an oven temperature will tell you whether the oven is at the right temperature required for your food item or not.
Place Items in the Middle Rack
The temperature doesn’t cook the food items equally inside the oven in many models. If your meal doesn’t have a recommendation on where the placement of the rack would be, consider placing the food on the middle rack. Compared to the upper and lower rack, heat comes evenly and causes minimum fluctuation while cooking.
So, for baking purposes, place the item in the middle rack to make sure your food is cooked evenly and thoroughly.
Steaming Support
The inside of electric ovens gets extremely dry. This sometimes delays the rising of bread as well as other similar foods. If you are struggling to get the expected rise in your pizza crust and loaf of bread, consider adding a cup filled with hot water to the pan, and place it inside the bottom of the oven.
You can also spray a bottle to spray some water to get away with this issue.
Choose the Right Bakeware
One of the benefits of electric ovens is that you can use different types of bakeware. But, different bakeware will get you different and inconsistent results. Ask your neighbors or friends who can cook regarding which bakeware you need to use for baking.
If you want the food to be browned on the sides and bottom, be sure to use metal bakeware. Go for glass or silicone bakeware if you don’t want this browning.
Common Issues While Baking with Whirlpool Ovens
It’s worth mentioning some issues that customers face using a Whirlpool oven for baking. If you know how to bake using an oven but still don’t get the expected results, you will find the following contents useful.
Preheating a Whirlpool Oven
To start it off, press the bake function. This will display 350 degrees Fahrenheit automatically. If your baking food item requires a lower or higher temperature, you can use the arrows to adjust it. When you are done with setting the temperature, press the start button.
It will take a few minutes for the oven to reach your desired temperature. You might see ‘PeE’ temperature progression during the preheating period depending on what model you have. Once you reached that temperature, it will beep, and then you can insert the food on the tray inside it.
But, if the oven doesn’t preheat even if it seems that the temperature is increasing, then you probably turned on its broil function. When you enable broil function, it might not be displayed, but it restricts preheating the oven.
Whirlpool user manual recommends putting the food inside five minutes after starting the broil function. If you are using an older model, you don’t need to wait, whether it’s broiling or roasting.
Preheating for Baking Items
If your cakes or cookies require longer than usual to be prepared for serving, this might be the case with the leavening process. When the dough rises, it needs a specific temperature condition to get things done properly.
For this reason, Whirlpool recommends waiting additional ten minutes after the preheating cycle before you put items that include baking soda, baking powder, yeast, eggs, etc. This stabilizes the oven temperature properly to be able to bake accurately following the baking recipes.
Troubleshooting a Whirlpool Oven that Doesn’t Bake Evenly
If the above information didn’t help you out, and the oven still cannot evenly cook bakery items, be sure to attempt the following troubleshooting.
- Check whether the item rests evenly on the rack or not. Batters should equally be distributed in pans.
- Once you put the food on the rack and close the door, don’t open the door until the cooking is done. Every time you open the door, it releases heat; thus, it takes a long time to cook the food.
- If you skip preheating, it will cause the food to have an over-brown top. Preheating makes sure the food is adequately cooked from top to bottom. So, make sure you wait long enough, allowing the oven to preheat properly.
- Check if you are using the wrong cooking pan. Darker ones often overcook foods. If the foods are being over-cooked on a regular basis, don’t use darker pans.
- In many cases, if the temperature calibration is compromised, the internal temperature gets too high or too low than what you set. Be sure to read the user manual for how to calibrate your whirlpool oven.
- Both the metal coil at the bottom and broil element at the top of the oven is equally responsible for delivering equal heat to cook food. When one doesn’t function properly, and the heat only comes from one side, this results in uneven cooking.
- Check if the metal coil has any blistering or breakage on it. The coil glows red if there are any interruptions.
- When the temperature sensor malfunctions, uneven cooking happens. Consider repositioning the sensor away from the wall for correct temperature readings.
- Perform a multimeter test to detect the sensor requires a replacement or not.
- To check the motor, turn the shaft. If it doesn’t turn easily, then the issue has to do with the motor. Consider changing it.
Final Words
Even though this guide was meant to let you know how to use a whirlpool oven for baking, I have included some factors that influence baking results. Perform the troubleshooting if the foods remain unevenly cooked, and fix as I have suggested.
If anything above doesn’t work for your oven, you should let a professional figure out the issue and fix it for you.
