so, im a member of a couple (ok a few) REBORN groups on FaceBook, and there is always chatter in the threads about this and that.
and i can remember when i was looking through the forum for BountifulBaby.com, some people talking about a hologen/convectioners oven.
seems to save the regualr MEAL MAKING oven and you can use this smaller one exclusively for the dolls themselves.
that thought didnt resurface again till today, when one person showed an image of her Christmas Gift this year, a holgen oven and was asking how well it worked.
Does cooking an entire two-course Sunday roast dinner in a glass bowl plugged into a wall socket sound too weird to be true? If so, think again. Welcome to the world of the halogen table-top oven.
Halogen ovens started life humbly enough being sold on shopping channels, but in the past few months they've won an army of converts on internet chat rooms.
And that's because halogen ovens don't just save space, they do everything in one pot that normally takes an entire oven to manage (sautèing, boiling, roasting, baking cakes) - and three times faster.
The table-top oven was developed using halogen heating elements, which convert electrical energy into intense heat. They also rely on infrared waves and an inbuilt high-performance fan, which helps circulate the intense halogen heat to cook the food as quickly as possible. The ovens themselves are much smaller than their conventional rivals - and about an eighth of the cost.
They consist of a clear glass bowl with a lid on top that contains the halogen bulbs and the high-powered fan. This means you can watch your food cooking, and adjust cooking times according to how the food looks.
But while they're compact, they can fit a suprising amount of food in - I could easily fit a medium chicken surrounded by vegetables in the bowl.
Some of the ovens also come with shelves so you can roast a larger chicken on the bottom while your vegetables or potatoes could go on the layer above - and because the fan circulates hot air evenly around the oven, there's no need to swap the chicken and vegetables around, or turn your food during cooking as in a conventional oven.
But is this latest kitchen gadget just a gimmick, or will halogen ovens really push traditional cookers onto the scrapheap?
To find out, I put six to the test. In each oven, I cooked a roast chicken, roast potatoes and carrots, followed by a ready-made sticky toffee pudding.
In a conventional oven, my 1.5kg chicken would have taken around 90 minutes at 375f (190 c). But my trusty halogen oven cookbook - My Halogen Heaven by Maryanne Madden - suggested one of the new machines could do it in just 33 minutes at 400f. The potatoes, which you put in raw, would need 50 minutes.
The pudding would have needed 22 minutes at the same temperature in a conventional oven. I tried five minutes - again on 400f.
I also wanted to check whether it's possible to cook two very different dishes without washing the oven in between. I simply poured the chicken juices away before popping my pudding inside the bowl.
Here are the results.
ANDREW JAMES DELUXE HALOGEN OVEN, £44.95
This oven is brilliantly easy to work and instructions are clear, although there's nothing fancy about it - it emits a tinny ping when cooking is complete and the light instantly switches off. The bowl - 33cm wide, taking a maximum of 12 litres - is light enough to carry to the table if you want to serve direct from the pot and the base is reassuringly solid.
The Andrew James model cooks well and is good value
It's inexpensive and would be superb value apart from one important detail. There's nowhere to put the lid. It's too heavy to lift easily and got so hot I was terrified of putting it down on the work surface. With halogen ovens, it's the lid that plugs into the wall, so you can't take it far from the cooker.
As this model doesn't come with a stand, I ended up holding the lid in one hand while trying to check the chicken with the other. The chicken was succulent - and took only 45 minutes to roast. I heated up the pudding in only five minutes, and there was no whiff of chicken despite using the same bowl.
VERDICT: 7/10. Cooks well, great value but let down by having no stand.
FLAVORWAVE OVEN PLATINUM, £112.90
This all-singing, all-dancing model is like a mini-spaceship. And the control panel, built into the lid, is as complex as anything you'd expect on a lunar rocket.
There's a digital display panel to set cooking time; a panel which lights up as you select the temperature and a touch panel to set fan speed. 'High', for example, helps the food cook even faster and improves browning.
The flip-top lid made the Flavorwave Platinum halogen oven easy to use
This is the only model where you don't have to remove the lid to open. I just had to flick it up, which I found much easier and safer.
When the cooking cycle is finished the oven emits a long beep. Unfortunately, I heard this rather more often than I expected as I kept having to blast my chicken and veg to get them properly cooked.
My chicken took an extra 25 minutes (on top of the 30 minutes recommended in the instructions) to cook thoroughly. By then, the outside was disappointingly dry and the vegetables still remained hard. The pudding was OK, but not brilliant.
The oven comes with two racks and a pair of tongs. A bewildering number of optional extras include a breakfast tray - complete with toast rack and space for eggs and bacon - an extender ring to cook larger turkeys and a steam basket.
VERDICT: 6/10. It looks good, but is not worth the money.
PROLECTRIX INFRACHEF, £54.99
The least attractive of the models and the most intimidating. The cooker is contained in a black case with two huge dials for timing and temperature, but the numbers are so small they are difficult to read and, disappointingly, temperatures are only in centigrade.
It does, on the plus side, come with a lid stand and the chunky handle makes it easy to hold, but it was really fiddly to try to remove the bowl.
The Prolectrix Infrachef might not be attractive but this halogen oven cooks chicken and vegetables to perfection
The instruction manual has a few recipes such as olive and sun-dried tomato focaccia, which is quite useful and the oven cooked brilliantly.
The chicken took just over 35 minutes to roast and was definitely the tastiest. The vegetables were also roasted to perfection. I don't believe any conventional oven could have cooked them better. The pudding was also delicious.
What it lacks in looks, it definitely makes up for in results.
VERDICT: 8/10. If you can overlook its appearance, this definitely delivers.
JML HALOGEN OVEN, £59.99
For my money this is the most appealing-looking model. The temperature and timing dials are easy to use. The lid fits easily on the bowl and the handle is sturdy.
But again, there's no lid stand and I had to clear a space beside the oven for a heat proof board that I could place the red hot lid on.
The JML halogen oven looks good and is easy to use
Also you can't turn the timing control backwards if you make a mistake as this could damage the timer. Instead, if the timer is set longer than required, you have to turn the oven off and wait for the timer to naturally count down to the time required.
The chicken cooked through in just 40 minutes but didn't crisp and looked decidedly unappetising. However, it tasted nice and moist. The vegetables were more crunchy than I would have liked and tasted boiled rather than roasted.
The pudding cooked in five minutes and tasted OK.
VERDICT: 5/10. Easy on the eye but with no lid stand it's tricky to use and the food was disappointing.
FLAVORWAVE TURBO, £74.95
The original FlavorWave is a more basic model than its souped-up big brother. But at almost twice the price of some models it's hard to see whether it's really twice as good.
However, it's still worth bearing in mind that, even at the top end of the price bracket, this is a fraction of the cost of a built-in cooker.
The original Flavorwave Turbo halogen oven scores higher than its souped-up big brother
It comes with a lid holder and tongs as well as the standard two racks. I would have liked temperatures in Fahrenheit as well as centigrade. And the instruction manual was rather patronising: how many users need to be told not to let their children play with the oven?
The clock ticks throughout the cooking time and a little bell rings at the end. But they're hard to hear over the roar of the fan.
However the results were excellent. The chicken cooked in time. It was nicely browned and moist, and the vegetables were gently roasted. The pudding also worked well.
VERDICT: 7/10. Works well and looks nice, but a little too pricey.
COOPERS OF STORTFORD, £39.99
For A budget buy, this does everything you need. There's no lid stand but you can buy one for just £6.99, which still makes the oven better value than some of the others. The instruction manual is easy to follow and contains a few useful recipes.
The value for money Coopers of Stortford halogen oven has easy to follow instructions
My chicken took an extra 15 minutes but, to be fair, the recipe in the handbook suggests cooking for at least an hour at a lower temperature of 325f. The veg remained undercooked. Again, this might have been different had I followed the recipe.
The pudding also needed an extra three minutes.
VERDICT: 8/10. No frills, but works efficiently and at a great price.
