number 1 reason to get an oven thermometer~

about a week ago, the big electric oven i use for baking up and died, but i thought, no biggie, i can use the gas oven instead. 5 minutes into baking however, the fire died -- yes, it ran out of gas. murphy's law. maybe they should rename it jen's law since it seems to be the guideline of  my life for the past 3 weeks now. anyway, back to my oven situation, i decided to buy a new, smaller oven to save on space, electricity, and well, money ^_^

i got this cute little thing and brought it home with high hopes that i could finish what i started, but before i did, i made sure to ask the store if i could return it and within a span of how many days in case it didn't do the job. i had one week to try it out.

first impression, it was really nice since it was compact and clean looking and the 9" pyrex dish i've used since forever fits inside perfectly. it had a rack where i could hang pieces, a thermostat running from 100-250C (i just needed 130-150C), a drip pan i could use as an extra baking sheet, roasting/broiling/defrost settings and a built-in timer; it seemed perfect.. until i turned it on.

it said in the manual to wash the rack and the pan in warm sudsy water, which i did, then to turn the thing on and set it on high for 15mins to get rid of the packing oils. i put the thermometer inside to REALLY check the temperature. before 15 minutes the thermometer inside already read 300C and climbing! i had to turn it off and open the oven door. i didn't want the thermometer to explode.

after letting everything cool, i decided to try a little experiment. i set the thermostat to 130C. in less than 15 minutes it reached 170-180 which was  still too hot. i set it at the lowest possible temp and again after 15 mins got a shaky 150C. and since this was my maximum working temp i figured it could still work. so i tried baking the batch that i wasnt able to finish on the gas oven and got good results even though the temp was still fluctuating.

the next day i did another batch. i left it for 5 minutes and when i came back all my bears' heads were drooping to one side. some were even doing backbends... i just burned 5 bears and about 25 cupcake toppers O_o the temp had spiked again. i was determined to return in, but i just had to give it another try.

one guess on the results.

... ... ...

6 more bear casualties.

i wonder why they even bothered to put a thermostat?

also, another thing... the timer.. oh, the timer. it was 3.5 minutes late. i checked it against my sister's digital timer and my chicken timer..

that's 3.5 possibly disastrous minutes.

i'm definitely returning it tomorrow.