Oven baking or cooking unevenly

When the oven bakes or cooks unevenly, it’s most unlikely that the fault is due to a defective heating element, since a heating element will either heat or not – i.e. the heating element won’t just heat a little or just heat in one of the sides.

If the oven bakes or cooks unevenly, it might be due to one of the following:

• This fault may occur if you have too much in the oven at the same time. If you use a regular oven – i.e. an oven without a fan circulating the hot air, but instead with a heat source radiating from the top and/or bottom – you will usually only able to use one tray in the oven at a time. If you use two trays at a time in a conventional oven, the oven won’t distribute enough heat to the bottom of the top tray and the top of the bottom tray.
  In a convection oven, you’ll be able to bake or cook with more than one tray at a time, this is due to the fact that a convection oven has a fan circulating and distributing the hot air in the oven cavity.
• The fault may be due to defective oven door hinges – or a defective oven door seal, which will result in the oven door not closing or sealing tightly. In either case, you’ll find that your food is baked or cooked unevenly in coherence with the oven door side that’s damaged. If the fault is due to defective oven door hinges, you can buy new ones here. If the fault is due to a defective oven door seal, you can find a new one here.

Have you recently gotten a new oven?

There can be large differences from one oven to another. You’ll especially find big differences in various convection oven models – not all convection ovens are equally good. When you buy a new oven or stove, you’ll often find that cooking time will either be shorter or longer than you’re used to. It may take some time finding the correct temperature setting, and getting the desired result. The size of the oven cavity, the shape and location of the heating elements, wattage power and fan motors will typically vary from brand to brand, and all these factors have an impact on cooking and baking results. Experiment with the settings until you get desired results.