Cleaning your oven with steam, not bleach

June 15th, 2012

Small Appliances

Is your oven disgusting?

Here’s a suggestion: clean it.

“But oven cleaning products are scary!”

No argument here: most oven cleaning solutions you’ll find in the supermarket contain nasty chemicals that are (potentially) bad for your health, and bad for the environment too.

And when you think about it, do you really want to put nasty chemicals into the place where you cook your food?

Personally, I prefer my pavlova without a side of bleach. And ironically, we’ve found that natural remedies work just as well, if not better than the commercial stuff. So here’s our guide to cleaning your oven the natural way:

How to clean your oven with steam

1. Take out all the racks, but leave one in the centre of the oven.

2. Wipe away any loose food debris from the floor and walls of the oven with a damp cloth.

3. Get an oven-safe dish (ceramic or glass is good) and fill it with 1 part water, 1 part white vinegar.

4. Close the door and switch the oven on to 120 degrees Celsius. Leave for 30 minutes.

5. Turn the oven off and remove the dish and the oven rack (use oven mitts if necessary).

6. Wearing rubber gloves, scrub any baked-on gunk and grime with steel wool. This can then be wiped out of the oven using a damp cloth. (If you are still having trouble getting your oven clean, you can repeat the steaming process using 100% vinegar instead of water and vinegar).

7.  As for the racks, you can either soak them in hot soapy water and then scrub clean, or stick them in the dishwasher on a heavy cycle.

8. Bask in the glory of your clean, clean oven.

9. Celebrate by baking a meat cake:

(Sorry, I’m kind of obsessed right now…)