#148: Ovens I Have Loved

Electric, Gas, Dual Fuel...Over decades I've tried more than a few.

Reminder: March Madhatter’s Tea this Saturday March 11 at 11AM Pacific for Paid Subscribers via Chat. I’ll be wearing my fuzzy slippers and a fancy scarf and hope to see you there.

Ovens I Have Loved

When I am invited into a kitchen, I get a thrill checking out oven specs, cubic footage and rack placement, like some do when they sit in a new car with leather seats at the dealer. But new cars drop in value as soon as they have driven around the block, and the price of new ovens can be daunting as you know. As I share in Art of the Pie, I wish we could test drive ovens like we can cars. Wouldn’t that be nice?

My favorite was this big restaurant Wolf that’s still running nearly 40 years later.

My all time fav was the 6-burner Wolf restaurant range I bought brand new back in 1985 for the kitchen at the Post and Beam House. I paid $900 which may not sound like much now, but believe me, it felt like I was breaking the bank back then! Although I never baked two 25-pound turkeys in it, the oven was large enough that I could have. The range was set up for natural gas but after a big explosion back in 1971 in the downtown area of my little town, natural gas was nixed forever¹ and if I wanted to cook with gas, propane was, and still is, the only option. My wuzband installed adapter valves and we were good to go.

1971 photo by the Port Angeles Evening News

Propane is a wet heat² and I learned how to bake with it by kneading and baking six loaves of bread in it each week. The pilot lights were always on making the shelf above it the perfect place to proof dough, and the oven was just the right temp to make yogurt overnight, too. As much as I loved that range, I couldn’t take it with me when I moved to The Tree House in 1995. Viking’s 4-burner home models had just come on the market and I bought one of the first ones for nearly $2000. I’ve moved it from The Tree House, to blueberry farm, back to The Tree House, and finally to Pie Cottage where it lives.

Before COVID, I traveled across the country for well over a decade teaching pie making workshops and got lots of experience baking in many different ovens…some electric, some gas, both propane and natural. Every oven was different and a high price model didn’t guarantee a great bake either. I’ve had some challenging bakes in very expensive ovens, where I had to adjust temps and rack positions for 6 pies, as well as protecting their tops from getting too dark, great results in apartment size models³ and thrift store ovens, and just about everything in between. With all the teaching and recipe development I do, I thought it would be good to have an electric model at my home, so I put a 220 outlet in the kitchen and then started the search.

Not too long after, I visited a baking friend who had just moved to a little one bedroom cabin and had put in a new range only the day before. I knew that bakes in her old electric oven were fabulous and asked her what she had done with it. "Darn it! I just gave it to the thrift store. I would have given it to you had I known. The bake is perfect and very even," which I knew. The short of it is, that I went to the thrift store, bought it, and they delivered and installed it right next to my Viking. Now, I was able to test recipes and teach with both gas and electric heat. I was pretty proud of myself for cobbling together a dual fuel range with two ovens and eight burners for $150 bucks!

My dual fuel double oven range with 8 burners. (photo by me)

About five years after that, Duncan installed two wall ovens with convection for me and I absolutely love them. I donated my friend’s oven back to the thrift store and really hope that someone else is having great bakes in it now.

I know that there is much talk about shifting away from gas, but until my trusty Viking decides to retire, it’s what I have.

I upgraded to two electric wall ovens and have never regretted it. My Viking propane oven is on the right. (photo by me)

A story for another time? The 1960s GE refrigerator I inherited—a true champ that served me well for nearly 40 years.

What about you? Gas? Electric? Old? New? What’s your favorite appliance? Does it have a story?

1. Read about the explosion here: https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/daughter-of-olympus-hotel-owners-recalls-night-of-port-angeles-gas-explosion-47-years-ago/

2. What is wet heat? Propane and Butane are Hydrocarbons, made up of Hydrogen and Carbon, when it burns it the Hydrogen and Carbon combine with Oxygen from the air to create CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) and H2O (Water Vapour).

3. Adventures in Baking! The cabin had an apartment size electric stove which needed a bungee cord to keep the oven door closed. When the power would go out, I would transfer the pot of soup to the top of the little woodstove that kept us warm, light the kerosene lantern, and keep on reading.