I can't resist kitchen gadgets and when I had a new kitchen it was a given I was going to choose ovens that require a few weeks to figure out how best to use them.
Over the past few weeks I have been trying to get to grips with my combination steam oven. In the beginning it was all a battle and we both had to go through the pain barrier. The oven won, I have the burn marks to prove it! Care is needed when using steam ovens and I learnt very quickly how to use the oven safely.
There are many steam oven options to choose from and if a separate steam oven isn't for you, main ovens can also be purchased that have a built-in steam function. I went for a separate combination steam oven to give more options and also to have the facility of a small fan oven.
One thing to be wary of when deciding to purchase a combination steam oven is some of the sales talk surrounding them. To quote one salesman 'people are buying these now to replace their microwaves'. His statement is ridiculous, a steam oven cannot replace a microwave. You wouldn't fill the water container, place your cereal bowl in a steam oven first thing in the morning and then empty the water container and remove all the excess water collected in the oven.
To date I've used it to cook vegetables, fruit, meat, fish and steamed puddings. I've reheated food, used it to prove my bread dough and baked bread. Over the next few weeks I'll put a few more photographs and recipes on here letting you know how I'm getting on.
To date I've used it to cook vegetables, fruit, meat, fish and steamed puddings. I've reheated food, used it to prove my bread dough and baked bread. Over the next few weeks I'll put a few more photographs and recipes on here letting you know how I'm getting on.
This is my first encounter making a cake using a fan oven with steam. The cake didn't brown as much as I thought it would but on this occasion it wasn't an issue. Cakes which are overcooked can be an issue with conventional cookers - my cake had a very moist crumb and not at all dry, it also only took 20 minutes to bake.
The lemon crunch topping is slightly different, whilst the cake is warm all you have to do is sprinkle over a layer of granulated sugar, Whitworth's has larger grains of sugar and is perfect for this cake, drizzle over the lemon juice.
I used a mixture of butter and Stork SB to give the cake a lighter crumb.
To bake in a conventional oven:
You will need: 20cm square lined baking tin
60g salted butter, softened
60g Stork SB
125g caster sugar
finely grated rind of 1 large lemon
2 large eggs
125g self-raising flour
65g ground almonds
60g granulated sugar
Juice of 1 lemon, strained
1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Add the butter, Stork SB, caster sugar and lemon rind to a large bowl, mix with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs and add gradually to the cake batter, adding a dessertspoon of flour to prevent the batter from curdling.
2. Fold in the flour and ground almonds. Pour the batter into the tin and spread to the edges.
3. Bake for 25 minutes until firm. Place the cake tin on a cooling rack.
4. Leaving the cake in the tin and whilst it is warm sprinkle over the sugar and drizzle over the strained lemon juice.
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