An experiment

Lately I've been feeling the lack of an oven quite acutely. I have an intense craving to get my bake on and can do nothing about it. The toaster oven just will not cut it this time as I cannot fit a cake pan in there.

On Sunday I made pancakes and used the central griddle of my 1953 O'Keefe & Merritt. I quite like the retro-funk it offers but I have two fundamental problems with it:
1) The oven is teensy-tiny, and there is no insulating seal around the door, so I'm sure it cooks horribly.
2) The oven is "match light" which scares the crap out of me.

The very nice PG&E man who inspected my pilot lights last fall says it works just fine and I need to make sure others who may use the oven know not to set the dial to 350 and walk away or else it will blow up and possibly torch the whole house. Mmmm, yeah. that definitely makes me want to try to use the oven...

So, Sunday's pancakes did not resolve my baking craving, but it did prompt another very thorough cleaning of the range. Boy, is it cute when it's all shiny clean! There is still some persistent baked on grime that just won't budge, but I keep working on it.

Last night I stopped at TJ's on my way home from work to grocery shop. I got a box of their frozen oatmeal-cranberry cookie dough. It's pre-formed balls, so I've been able to do one or two at a time in the toaster oven whenever the mood for a cookie strikes. Quite yummy. I decided last night that I was going to attempt to turn on the oven and cook a whole tray of cookies to test the oven.

Four matches later, the oven was lit and preheating! Heating up my house too, I might add, so I'm glad our 90+ degree weather had passed. I spread the dough balls on the sheet, popped it in the oven, set the timer and sat down to wait. and wait. and wait.

I knew it was likely to be somewhat off and heat inffeciently, but I was not expecting the cookies to take twice as long and require cranking up the heat 50 degrees midway into it. But there you have it...I was baking in my teensy tiny 1953 oven! I'm sure the fact that my cookie sheet was covering the rack wall to wall and front to back was not helping the airflow issues, but it's what I had on hand.

I go back and forth on whether I should try to restore the range and see if they can improve the oven function while there at it, and really wanting the double wall ovens I've been planning for my kitchen since day one. Fashion vs function. Those double wall ovens are what has kept me form buying a replacement range until now. I do love the vintage charm of the O'Keefe & Merritt, but I think I love baking performance more. Anyway, this prompted me to do some more research on restoration. I had a horrible experience with a vendor last time I researched it, but there has to be some alternatives out there. Considering I'm in no real hurry, I think I'll look into it a bit more.

In the meanwhile, I will get an oven thermometer to more accurately gauge the calibration of the oven. I may go so far as to bake a cake this weekend.