I hate to admit to myself how long I looked for "MY" oven. It began over 4 price changes ago. And that's the part that hurts. But I'm SO glad I did or I would not have made the choice I made. All along I wanted the Millennium Dacor but I did not like the appearance of the Dacor Convection MicroWave (which is really a Sharp, in a Dacor kit). One of two dealers who suffered with me for a few years--introduced me to Miele's H4088BM Conv MW. OMG! It took me a few months to get over the cost. Then to find the best price to put in the dedicated 220. I couldn't be happier!! I've only had my 30" MieleH4882BP and the ConvMW since January 2011, but I couldn't be happier. And also with the service. One of the racks was faulty, and they quickly shipped me another. And they corrected a scratched oven glass. Oh my! Can't tell you hope much I use the MW!! Since I'm normally alone, I use it as my main oven. I love ALL the features and I do use the Master Chef when appropriate, like the pork loin. And we through in an apple dish. on and on, I could rave.

I just spent the last few months looking at ovens. It would be helpful if someone would do a chart. I never found a Verona or a Capitol. I finally found a Blue Star and didn't care for the look. I have a vacation home and therefore two different kitchen setups. Over $6000.00 I didn't look at those ovens Over $3500.00 good quality sturdy racks, true convection oven, continuous grates, high speed burners, quality simmer burners, a must is a better ventahood for higher cpm, quality stainless steel, decorator look Dual Fuel requires 220 wiring. Some of the ovens have wok or griddles and some don't. Between $2000 and 3500, some with better racks than others, continuous grates, high speed burners, simmer burners are a bit high, good stainless steel quality, designer look, a ventahood may be necessary Between $1000 and 2000 microwave with fan is possible for the ventahood, self cleaning, timer, bake modes, convection oven, not as good quality stainless steel, little better racks than lower priced ranges; Between 500 and 1000 low quality stainless steel that can rust, scratch, show burn stains, few with ontinuous grates, most with flimsy racks, has a timer, regular burners, oven light, then there are the differences between the larger ovens and the smaller ovens. Smaller ovens pre heat faster. Take your favorite roasting pan and perhaps a 2nd pan to the store with you and place them in the oven and see how you like it. Bertazzoni height is small. American Range has a very large capacity. The Wolf has a very low simmer burner. The Viking grates are too heavy for me to clean up easily. A lot of the more expensive ovens do not have timers and some don't have temperature indicators or even oven off/on lights. Some knobs turn too easily and my new Kitchen Aid cooktop turns on when I clean. Also, I have to look twice to see if they are on or off. My new Kenmore electric wall ovens have a warm and hold feature and they heat evenly and rapidly. I'll be afraid to use the self cleaning oven for fear it will burn out the electronics. The Bertazzoni burners take an extra 3 seconds to start. The oven needs to be started with the door ajar. Some of the ovens I looked at have oven burners that will light with a match others don't. I liked the write ups on the Blue Star but when I saw it - I knew immediately it was not for me. There is a great deal of discussion about open burners vs. closed burners. I really liked the American Range but didn't want to spend that much money and I wanted a stainless steel top and the one I saw was black porcelain. My last oven rusted (a builder's model) so the quality of the stainless steel was very important to me. Take a magnet with you when you shop to see which stainless steel is better. The Bertazzoni went on sale for just under $2000 and I decided to go with that price. Did I get everything I wanted? - not quite. Do I really like my new oven? Absolutely. The look is exactly what I wanted, the stainless steel is high quality, the simmer burner is not low enough, the high speed burner is more than I need. The information says it is not necessary to preheat. There is no indicator beep when it does preheat. It has continuous grates that are the right weight for me and I find the closed burners and stainless steel exceptionally easy to clean. The oven is a little small but preheats rapidly and I think for my family it will be fine. It has good lighting. The fan noise is like my microwave on low. It turns off when you are through cooking. Some ovens keep blowing and continue the noise. Previously, I never used my self cleaning oven and this one doesn't even have one. I miss having a timer and will be buying something hopefully with a long ring. There are no electronics to burn out so I'm hoping I won't have repair problems. I purchased an oven thermometer to check the temperature. Either the oven or the thermometer is slightly off but not enough to cause any problems. I will probably purchase another thermometer to see which is correct. The convection, I assume, will take getting used to and so far I prefer not to use it. I did use it to dehydraate the other day and it worked fairly well making 'kale'. I like the heavy black knobs and I read that some of the stainless metal knobs on other ovens get hot. The black knobs are easy to read after one day of getting used to them and I immediately can tell if they are on or off. In addition, some ovens let heat out the front and possibly get hot. I am used to the ovens that let heat out the back top and don't feel I will get burned that way. I hope someone will make a chart. GOOD LUCK finding the right appliance for you.

You can bake with both but there are some differences between gas and electric. The differences might be more or less depending on your recipes and what you are baking. Gas ovens need more ventilation due to combustion. The combustion does put out moisture but this is vented out quickly along with more heat into your kitchen. This is more of a drying environment to what you are baking. Electric ovens hold onto more of the moisture from what you are cooking so are more moist. The moisture is beneficial when you want to promote starch gelatinization, at the beginning of the bake cycle and gives a little longer rise and a different texture to the crust especially for bread. This is why you spray water into the oven during the first part of baking some breads. The moistness can also benefit cakes or anything that needs to rise by giving that little extra time. If you read the bread baking forums there are all kinds of work around for this in a gas oven one of which is using a cloche when baking bread to hold onto the moisture. The dryness of a gas oven is good for the second half of baking to encourage browning. This is also why gas ovens are great for roasting. I have baked in both off and on for years. This difference in cakes may be much less for something like a cake mix but more for something with a lot of sugar in it. Some people turn on the convection fan after the cake has risen to encourage browning. If you have an electric oven now with convection and use it to bake cakes, you might not notice any difference from gas. One very nice thing about the BS is that you can use a full sized commercial tray. Some of the other differences in BS and your oven you have now, might depend on the features you have in that oven.

Ahah! Yes, Colleen, your sandwich tin is what I would call a "cake pan" or if there's any ambiguity, a "layer cake pan". I would think that the baking powder is necessary in the sandwich tin, which was also what was used in the video. It's interesting that you recombine the eggs first then add the dry. I've done the all sugar in the whites version. I'm pretty sure that's the way I learned as a kid. More recently, I've been aerating the yolks and sugar, with just a bit of sugar in the whites, because why not with a stand mixer. By hand, it's not really worth it. Save the shoulder for the whites. :) Your recipe is much closer to what the OP was trying to make, I think. There was just so much off in that video, I didn't stop to find out what's normal in an English sponge like the greased tin, and what's just off. Maybe more people should whip eggwhites by hand? Learn their value in sweat? It's been a dozen years since I did a dozen eggwhites for a fundraiser, where we weren't allowed to use outside equipment. The other ladies said it couldn't be done. :) I can't remember if I had a whisk. I think it was a fork. It took a while to get enough air into them to see any foam, but once it got frothy, getting it up to stiff peaks was pretty easy.