I always convection bake, it is never uneven, but I am not sure about regular baking, whether you need to rotate or not.

I don't think you are being unreasonable. The oven should bake even, even in standard mode.

On my GE Cafe I had to have the oven temperature recalibrated.

I really loved my old GE stove but after this one I wouldn't buy another. I don't like how it bakes. And I can't figure out how to change the temperature mid-bake without the oven turning itself off and when you open the door to check something it drops by 20-25 degrees.

using the convection fan should even out the heat (and I use the convection function of my oven a lot), but I don't like baking a cheesecake using convection---it tends to poof and then fall and crack. For a cheesecake in particular you could use a water bath to even the heat, but that doesn't solve the basic oven problem

My GE Gemini also bakes unevenly and the larger, bottom oven takes longer to bake than the top oven. I won't buy another GE.

Blfenton - So yours still bakes uneven with the oven temp recalibrated? Do you use the convection mode often?

I used the bottom oven for biscuits over the weekend and they seemed to take a long time. Probably didn't help that I kept opening and closing the drawer, but I find biscuits usually take less time than stated to bake and can end up overly brown fast.

I have used my convection mode twice. The first time it didn't cook the banana loaf properly and the second time it took the roast beef 50% longer to cook than it should have done, and that was for med-rare.

Is the whole unit level? (Try to fry an egg in a pan on a burner, you'll know quickly if the stove slopes.) it might be an easy fix by adjusting the legs if your egg doesn't stay near the middle of the pan.

Dlm - Ha! I need to stop eating like a jerk. Says the girl who just finished a large bowl of leftover cream cheese mashed potatoes for a snack. I was just saying to DH how my clothes are a wee bit snug.

Maddie - This is what a level is showing. I'll have to dig the book out and see if I can make adjustments.

All along I kept saying that the oven in our Wolf range cooked faster on one side of the oven than the other. Finally, the last straw was an especially unevenly baked chocolate cheesecake. It looked like someone had drawn a line down the middle between the nicely baked side and the overbaked side. long story short, they ordered a new burner tube. When they removed the original burner tube, it turned out, that some of the ports were literally burnt out (open) on the tube (on the side that cooked too fast--too much flame was coming out of that side). Much more even cooking from one side of the oven to the other after the burner tube was replaced.

I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect a brand new oven to cook evenly. I'd experiment a little more, use the convection, and call them if you keep having problems.

Have you placed an oven thermometer is the oven and moved it around to determine if the temp is constant? You can purchase an oven thermometer at BB&B.

Even Ina rotates oven baked goods.

I don't think it's unreasonable at all.

Catmom - Oh my. I can imagine you weren't happy about that! I'm glad to know it works much better now.

Ratherbe - No I haven't tried a thermometer. I just got off the phone with the appliance place and they're going to deal with it when they come with the new parts. I think I'll just let them do their thing.

I'd like to try baking something with the convection mode today.

There is definitely a problem and I hope they fix it or replace the stove. DH made a cheesecake last night! BTW, cook your biscuits on the middle oven rack. Pizzas and other crispy things go on the bottom rack. :)

Oakley - I'm actually hungry for more cheesecake.

I had food cooking in the main oven. The bottom of this oven acts as a second oven or warming drawer so I tried out the biscuits in there.

Looks like a problem to me. I would notify the merchant as soon as possible.

Okay, I get it. I still have the old fashioned kind of oven. But I'd love a warming drawer!

My Sandy is shopping for new appliances and asked me to help. She fell in love with the GE cafe series. I mentioned your concern with your oven and the uneven baking results.

He suggested that every oven should be warmed up for 25 minutes and ignore the beep saying the oven is up to temp.

Golddust - Good to know about the 25 min., thanks!

I tested the convection bake tonight on cookies. They turned out really nice and even.

The recipe said preheat to 350 degrees and cookies done in 12-14 min. I heard a few different things regarding convection baking and one was to bump the temp down 25 degrees. I did this and the cookies took about 14-15 min. Looked great. Then I bumped it to 350 and they were done in 12 min, and look great. So it didn't save time in this instance, but they did bake even.

Hopefully they can get it fixed up when they come out. I'll post an update. I plan to keep testing different things out in the meantime.

Shee - What a good idea to test convection on a simple recipe like cookies! I've only tested it on a rib roast, which was not exactly a success. I'll have to give it a try again.

I have a GE Profile and it does seem to make the back edges a little more brown than the front. I don't use convection, but I don't bake very often. The oven automatically adjusts your temp down 25 degrees for convection. I've also read to give a 20 minute preheat.

So who's been eating all that cheesecake?

May - Just looked through the manual and I see there is an auto recipe conversion feature. .......good to know.

Ha, the cheesecake - We had company over the weekend and friends have been in and out over the past few days. Most of the cookies are in the freezer.

For the GE Cafe, when you switch to convection mode it automatically adjusts the temperature.

I won't go through the whole thing again. I have posted on the Appliance Forum how awful my GE Cafe range is and how abysmal the service was when I complained. Mine is one year old and I'm ready to put it on the curb, eat my losses, and buy something else.

I have photos of tests I did to see where the hot spots were. I sent them to GE customer service. They now have a note in my account that says "burns toast." ARRRGGGGHHH! (I'd post the pix here, but I can't remember how to post Photobucket pictures on Houzz.)

This range has taken all of the fun out of baking for me. :-(

Bbstx - Have you had issues with it the whole time?

I've baked quite a few things and the convection and everything is coming out very even. Now the time is taking the same amount or even a few min. longer than the recipe calls for.

They haven't been out yet -refrigerator door should be in sometime soon and they're going to deal with everything at once. For any service or repairs, the people we bought the appliances from also do that work so we'll be seeing them.

I would be quite bothered by the burns toast note. For the Photobucket pics, click on the photo icon here and when the box pops up, copy and paste the direct link into the file name box and click open.

Yes! I've had issues with the range from the beginning. The repairman has been here so often, I felt like I should have had a gift under the Christmas tree for him! The repairman agrees that it isn't cooking evenly. He got very frustrated with whoever he talked with at GE. He said the guy was rude, said something nasty about me which he would not repeat, and told him there was nothing else to do. I believe there is a design flaw in the product that GE is loath to acknowledge.

Lovely GE customer service has told me they won't come back without charging me. The only thing that the repairman has done is adjust the temperature. It was way way off. Unfortunately, that did not fix the uneven cooking. Even DH, who has no stomach for confrontation, has spoken sharply to GE Customer service about their unwillingness to respond to the very obvious problems

People complain about Viking, but that is what I had in my last house and it was a dream, especially compared to this crummy GE Cafe.

I have one of the original GE Cafe models and haven't had any issues with the range top or the oven. I don't think I've ever used the warming drawer in the bottom, maybe once on Thanksgiving. I have the duel fuel so the top is gas (I have propane) and the oven is electric. Sometimes I use convection for baking, sometimes not. I haven't noticed longer cooking times but I tend to set timer on the low end and check. However when I use the convection roast for meat, that definitely cooks much faster for me.

I'm sorry for those of you experiencing problems as well as getting poor customer service. I've only dealt with them once when they delivered my stove w/o the propane conversion kit. We had rented our house for a week (we live in tourist spot) and had renters coming so I was freaking out b/c they wouldn't be able to use the range. GE was fantastic...very apologetic and sent the kit overnight express. The installer was equally amazing...agreeing to come back as soon as the kit got delivered. He was finished just hours b/f the renters arrived.

Thanks Sheesh for the photo tutorial. To see the burned areas, it is necessary to click on the photo. The above picture was taken after ONE minute with my oven set at 350 degrees. I used the upper oven. It was done while the repairman was here and after he had adjusted and tested the thermostat. Even if you discount the edge pieces, the center 9 pieces are uneven. I have turned the pieces of bread over so that I could photograph the underside.

This is the topside of the pieces of bread above.

This is the lower oven after about 3 or 4 minutes at 350. I have turned the slices of bread over so, you are looking at the bottom side but in the same location and order they were in when they were turned upside down.

This is the topside of the pieces of bread above.

I have provided these photos to GE Customer Service. They thought they were "normal." I think they have sold me a POS and are willing to say anything to cover up the obvious design flaws in their product. I made them a promise that I would speak ill of their product every chance I got, and I would discourage anyone from purchasing a GE Cafe range. I doubt they care.

The above picture was taken after ONE minute with my oven set at 350 degrees.

Holy cow! Bread testing is a good idea. I went with GE thinking it was the safest brand out there, and we always were happy with our other products. Whirlpool would have been the second brand choice, but I don't care for the flat, wide design of their current handles. I also would pop that tacky, large logo right off. I'm not sure why theirs bugs me.

Well... I'm hoping they can come up with something. We were hoping to keep these for a looong time. Not long ago my parents replaced some of their appliances and it wasn't because there was anything wrong with them. The old stuff all seems to be made better.

We went for Whirlpool appliances for our rental (in a very nice neighborhood) and they gave the kitchen a great upgrade feel. Our tenants like them.

Mine bakes terrible.. $4,000 and it is not hot or even.. did 2 pans of cupcakes.. got 24 different ones.. the ones on the right didn’t brown at all. Convection adds nothing.. I had a 25 year old Jenn Air that baked like a pastry shop oven.. so disappointed 🙁

I’m the original poster. FWIW, I remember doing a bread test and sending photos (of uneven burnt toast) to guy from appliance store. They ended up replacing the heating elements, don’t remember what exactly anymore, but the oven has worked well ever since. I’m happy with it. I’m not convinced we would have had the same outcome had we not gone with a local store that sells and services what they carry.

7914- How old is yours? Have you contacted someone about the oven yet? Hope they get it fixed for you. That’s very frustrating.

Thanks for following up on this. I bought my Cafe several months ago and constantly have burnt bottms of cupcakes or pound cakes on half of my items! I am angry, My husband keeps telling me to rotate them, I never had to with my old stove!

We bought a GE Cafe 10 years ago and I never had an issue with uneven baking.

We're about to buy another one. I may have to reconsider.

Although it sounds like many people with that model or line of appliances have all kinds of trouble with them, the cheesecake in the original post just looks like it should have been rotated halfway through baking. IME most foods have to be rotated during the cooking process. The America’s Test Kitchen videos always, always show the cooks rotating baked goods and often other types of foods, and they have top of the line ovens. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to put forth the extra effort to turn a pan around to cook evenly. The other problems, like the oddly patterned burned toast, are another matter altogether!

I always rotate whatever I am baking in the oven, whether it is necessary or not. I also do this in my toaster ovens. My main oven is gas (Bertazzoni) and bakes very well, even if I do not rotate, but I rotate anyway. One of the main things I bake is pizza, and it bakes so quickly that there is not time to rotate it, but in my outdoor pizza oven, I rotate the pizza constantly, but it gets above 935°F and bakes pizza in one minute.

To me, it is natural for an oven to have hot spots and cooler spots, which is why (I suppose) that convection was invented, and I do use that in my main oven.

I always rotate pies and cheesecake whenever I bake them, as well as bread - just as a force of habit.

I bought a GE Profile last August (single oven, less expensive than a Cafe). I'm not having any baking or roasting problems that I'm aware of. I do rotate my baked goods halfway through, did in my old oven too. I concur with Kswl that ATK always tells you to rotate baked goods, even to swap racks if you're using more than one pan.

We moved to a new house nearly three years ago and have builder appliances—-Whirlpool. The oven has never been right. We had repairmen here twice and they replaced some board or something. Things get very brown on the outside but uncooked inside. I had GE’s before this and never a problem and never rotated pans.

I vaguely remember one of the repairmen saying something to the effect of the heat in new ovens cycles on and off. I’m wondering if this is the problem. An “energy-saver” feature but it compromises baking.

Joanie, oven heating elements have always cycled on and off to maintain heat, so I don't think that is new. But I do agree that how they do it can create problems. In a former home, we paid to upgrade the builder's standard (above average) appliances. We got a gas cooktop and a DW we loved, but as excited as I was about the Whirlpool double ovens (my first DO), they were awful. The tops of everything burned quickly with the rest uncooked. The broiling element was coming on to maintain the heat setting and everything was broiling. I had a tech come out and test it, spent a long time on the phone and said he couldn't believe that the Whirlpool folks said that was how it was designed to work. I resorted to placong my pizza stone on the top rack to protect my baking.

I need to replace my oven -- or maybe see if it can be repaired after reading this. I have Wolf DO now. I've has several service calls, but I do like the way they cook. If I replace, I will probably go with Wolf again.

Update from 5 years ago: GE finally split the difference with me. They sold me a dual fuel for about half the cost. The new one came damaged. They send another new one. I’ve had it for about 4 years now. It is acceptable, but I have such a bad taste in my mouth from all I had to go through that you will not find me buying another GE cooking product. Customer service is important to me and GE’s is abysmal!

My neighbor also has the GE Cafe all gas. Her’s is about 5 years old. So far they’ve had to replace the oven fan and some electronics. Now, the burners won’t light automatically. She has to use a lighter. GE will not stand behind it.

Lascatx—-great idea using the pizza stone to shelter the baking. Im not ready to get a new oven as we are thinking of finessing the kitchen a little—more cabinets and maybe moving things around and I’d like to get a double oven if possible.