Testing out my oven.....

An electric oven was never high on my list of things I wanted- why would I want an oven, when I had a perfectly functioning gas one at home? Sure, my oven often refuses to start (and usually in the most convinient times!), but it's always managed to create beautifully baked goods.

Getting an electric oven was my mum's idea because a sometimes, the oven is a little too big to bake small things which require short baking times. But a simple electric oven was not what she had in mind- she wanted an electric oven with a rotisserie function. A chicken on a stick revolving around in an oven? Now that sounds like a whole heap of fun! So when we bought a new, small electric oven two days ago, I was extremely excited. So excited that despite the fact that it was almost bedtime, I wanted to plug it in and bake a cake straight away. My mum wouldn’t let me =[

We ended up ‘testing’ our new oven by baking garlic bread the next morning, forgetting to read the manual (because we were all so excited) and skipped the ‘do this before using you oven’ step until the oven started smelling like stinky plastic……Woops!


But since you can’t really test an oven by baking garlic bread, I tested it again. For lunch! I chose a simple quiche recipe to also try out my new tart pan- I’ve been wanting one for a while now (they make pretty tarts!) The tart pan wasn’t very deep so I had to halve the recipe I usually use. It also had a removable base so when I was transferring the pastry (in the tin) with one hand under the tin, it fell out and fell on the floor- I guess my hand span is less than 18cm then!

The tart itself didn’t turn out too bad and the tart pan made it look so much prettier than when I bake it in my glass dish. But it was really thin, and definitely not filling enough for three of us (I could easily eat the whole thing).

But the oven was so different to my gas oven! I think the lack of flame makes it look not as hot as the gas oven, but I have a strange feeling that the actual temperature in the oven is lower than the temperature on the dial because the tart took longer than I expected it to take. Not being able to turn on a light to look inside was also uncomfortable (and I couldn't even open the door =[ )and I found it really weird when I opened the door and didn’t receive a huge blast of hot air blowing at my face. I still like my gas oven better, but having a smaller electric one means that I don’t have to feel guilty about using the oven for 5 minutes. Which means I can now bake even more!!

And just incase I didn't test the oven properly (and because I can't have all the fun), my mum baked chicken wings for dinner ;)

Ham and spring onion quiche/tart
adapted from The Better Homes and Garden Cookbook

Pastry:
1 ¼ cup plain flour
1 Tbs sugar
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup cooking oil
3 Tbs milk (I needed a lot more)

Filling
2 beaten eggs
¾ cup milk
¼ cup slices green onions
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
dash ground nutmeg
1/2 cup chopped cooked ham (or chicken or crabmeat)
¾ cup Swiss, Cheddar, Monterey Jack or Havarti cheese
½ tablespoon plain flour

1.In a medium bowl, stir together flour, sugar and salt. Add oil and milk all at once to the flour mixture. Stir lightly with a fork. Form into a ball. Press dough firmly onto bottom and up sides of a 23cm pie plate or tart pan. Cover in two layers of foil and bake in 230oC oven for 8 min. Remove foil and bake for 4-5 min until pastry is set and dry. Remove from oven. Reduce oven temp to 180oC
2.Meanwhile in a medium bowl, stir together eggs, milk, green onions, salt, pepper, nutmeg. Stir in ham. In a small bowl, toss together the cheese and the flour. Add to egg mixture; mix well
3.Pour egg mixture into a hot, baked pastry shell. Bake in the 180 oven for ~30 minutes or until knife inserted near centre comes out clean. Let stand 10 min before serving.