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laughablemoments

If you bake in a Blue Star...

laughablemoments
9 years ago

Please share your experiences with baking in a Blue Star. I see a lot of chatter about how awesome the tops cook (Yes, I'm impressed), but what I really want to know now is

-How do the ovens bake?

-Do you have to rotate your pans?

-Do you have to make your pans trade places up and down on the racks in the midst of baking?

-Do you use the 18" x 26" full size baking sheet pans in yours? If so, how is the evenness of baking across the sheets?

The oven functioning is just important to me as the rangetop. We bake a lot of food: cookies, cakes, breads, in addition to casseroles and the like.

Please let me know your experiences. Thanks! : )

Comments (12)

  • loyalandtrue
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    laughable, I have only been using my BS for a few months so I can only tell you about my limited experience with it so far.
    The oven is so huge that I have not had to bake on different levels. I have baked 3 pies at one time and each was uniformly brown. Yesterday, I did 3 batches of my grandmother's "rocks"-oatmeal, raisin, walnut cookies, mmm...I used 2 cookie sheets on the middle rack and they were perfect. The only reason I didn't bake more at one time is because I only have 2 of my favorite cookie sheets, but it might be time to get more! I would think that the convection feature would help circulate the air so that rotating would not be necessary, but there might be others who could address that.
    So far, I have loved cooking and baking with my BS.

  • practigal
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I think that you should specify the size of the Blue Star range because it may be that the experience differs from model to model.

  • cookncarpenter
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I've had my 36" almost two years. I don't bake a lot, but when I have, it bakes just fine. Even, and no rotating necessary. I do not use convection, because the fan bugs me, other than that, I absolutely love my range.

  • laughablemoments
    Original Author
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I'm looking at the 48" specifically, but I think the large oven of the 48" would be similar to the oven of the 30", perhaps.

  • practigal
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Did you post on the appliance site too?

  • laughablemoments
    Original Author
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Yes, I posted specifically about the 48"s on the appliance site. Thanks for checking. : )

  • Oaktown
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    We have the 48" Bluestar range but do not bake much.

    DH complains that the larger oven takes a long time to preheat. We use the smaller oven maybe once a week. Have baked a couple of 1/2 sheets of cookies at a time in the small oven, don't rotate or trade spots for the sheets and they've come out great (but we likely wouldn't notice any subtle quality differences, as any cookies go fast in our house). DH likes that our 1/2 sheets fit directly in the small oven without the need for any racks. Hope this helps a little :-)

  • redrange
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I have a 48" Bluestar and mostly use the small oven. I do rotate pans, as the back heats more than the front.

    The large oven takes a long time to heat up, and if I use the convection I don't rotate pans, but the convection goes from fairly quiet to noisy, then back to quiet again. Annoying. If I don't use the convection, I do find it better to rotate pans, especially if I'm using the full sheet.

  • laughablemoments
    Original Author
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thank you for your replies everyone!

    I got to test drive a 48" Bluestar Platinum range this week. I was so excited to do be able to do this! Hummm. I was wanting so much to LOVE this thing, but it didn't happen. Here is my assessment:

    +
    -Oven heated fairly quickly
    -Cooking on the burners was an awesome experience. Wonderful, really. They gave off more heat than I'm used to standing over. ; )
    -The way that the grates can be quarter turned to raise and lower your pans over the flame is ingenious. Loved this feature.
    -Wok cooking was incredible. (Too bad the wok that the showroom provided for the test drive was nonstick. Ick.)
    -I was impressed with how some of the burners could be swapped out for a grill and griddle. How cool is that!
    -The griddle did a nice job on the eggs that I fried on it. It was pretty even in temperature across the surface. (But there is a negative side to this one; see below.)
    -I didn't find the doors to be intolerably hot. I wouldn't have hesitated to use this in a house with young children. (I was also ok with having a wood stove in our home without a barricade with our young children playing nearby, so YMMV.)

    -
    -Oven was VERY uneven for baking. Believe me, I tried to make it work. I did multiple batches of cookies (about 12 dozen of my favorite fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies.) I rotated pans. I turned the oven down, thinking maybe we had accidentally set it too hot. I tried pulling the cookies out earlier. I tried baking the cookies on different racks. I think I tried it with without convection. I tried the small oven. Not one batch had the quality or evenness that I was looking for. : ( This was a HUGE disappointment to me.

    I wish I had taken my standard Air Bake sheets with me. The full size stainless steel sheet pans that the showroom provided had a lip on them that the salesman said might have been affecting performance. (?) (If I was him trying to sell these stoves, I'd invest in some pans that wouldn't hinder baking results!) My Maytag Gemini, which I think only does mediocre in the baking department, gives me better baking results than this unit that costs nearly 10k.
    -While I liked how the griddle cooked, I did not like the design of it. I suppose it was necessary, but the rectangular shaped vent hole (and also the hole that grease would drain through) was in the front right corner of the griddle. Burning hot air gushed through this hole. I'm right handed, and several times when I reached across it to flip the eggs, I was concerned that I might get burned. I didn't, but it was very uncomfortable to work over that spot. Lefties might not have the same problem, at least, not until they tried to use the ridged side of the griddle. Rotating the griddle would not help any, since there is a vent hole in the opposite corner that lands in the exact same place when rotated.
    -I could smell gas while using the appliance. Not enough to make me gag, but it was certainly noticeable to this pregnant mama's nose. Sales associate said this comes with the territory with this type of stove. (?)
    -The oven racks did not glide easily at all. They grated, and we really had to tug to get them out and reposition them. I've since read that the way that the Platinum heats the back of the oven can cause the racks to warp. Yikes.

    I came away from the whole deal rather disenchanted. Like I said, I really wanted to adore the range. If I had, my precious DH would have gotten us one. But he wants me to LOVE it. I. just. couldn't. love. it. I almost could have cried. It was a bit of a bitter disappointment. I am VERY thankful we got to try it out and experience the shortcomings without being invested in it in our own kitchen.

  • HomeChef59
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    That is why I just bought the range top and not the range with oven. I'm so excited. I've been waiting about five years to get a proper range top.

    I want the best of both worlds. I'll find a good oven as soon as my current oven poops out.

    Sorry, it didn't work out for you.

  • cookncarpenter
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Maybe you need to look at the RNB?
    Honestly, nothing about the Platinum excites me, I'd pick the RNB even it was priced the same or more than the Platinum...

  • laughablemoments
    Original Author
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    "That is why I just bought the range top and not the range with oven. I'm so excited. I've been waiting about five years to get a proper range top."

    Yay! I'm excited for you, too, Homechef59 : ) I think you'll be happy with your purchase. You'll have to let us know how you make out with the ovens when the time comes.

    From the sounds of it, folks are still doing a lot of tray swapping in the RNB's too. Baking is done here frequently enough that I don't want to have to fiddle around, but thanks for the suggestion, Ctydm.

    I didn't see anything to draw me to the Platinum either... : / I don't think I'd use the indoor grill, and I'd rather just use a griddle on the stove top and have burner space the rest of the time. It was a cool feature for those that like options, though.