No reason to be concerned. Like any other appliance, you need to expirament with how it cooks. Convection ovens don't necessarily reduce your cooking times, they just employ a fan to circulate the air to keep an even temperature throughout the oven. Because of the even temps, you should reduce your temps 25 degrees to compensate.

Thank you for the suggestions. Experimenting will be the order of the day.

Steve, You are so right, just lower the temp but not the baking time. I think doing both was a big mistake.

Plllog, yes, experiment and remember to mark the favorable results on the recipe itself.

Today will be another baking day and another day of learning. So much to do, so little time. I am thankful to have my Gardenweb friends to refer to at times like this. I am venturing into several new things so input is welcome.

Madonna

Madonna, every oven is different with a slight learning curve. Sounds like the Hamilton Beach is going to be a nice addition to your kitchen.

I have used all of the settings now on the Oster except the dehydration setting. One setting that I didn't think I would use is the defrost setting. But I've used it twice now and it works great. I defrosted a boneless ham in less than an hour. And unlike defrosting in a microwave, there is no worry that it will cook parts before they defrost.

Try this:

Get a few cups (heat proof like ceramic). Fill cups with small quantity of cooking oil. Place cups inside your oven in various places and set oven temperature to whatever, say 300F.

After a while, measure each cup's oil with an instant thermometer.

You will get to know your oven's personality and how accurate your oven temperature setting is.

dcarch

Dcarch, I like that! Sounds more useful than the old standby of several thermometers.