Baking in Microwave Oven or Convection in India
You can bake In Microwave Convection or Microwave Oven. Convection mode is required for baking cake, cookies and Pizza. Simple Microwave cannot bake.
How to bake in the microwave is a common question these days when you have the various additional features, that come baked with a single device especially in India.
The microwave baking concept was popularized by devices that have the convection mode. If your device does not have this mode, baking in the microwave is not possible.
Baking in Oven is pretty much the same as Microwave Convection. In fact, new-age devices these days even have a combi mode of Convection + Micro that helps bake even faster than standard Ovens.
Microwave Oven is a standard term and the device may or may not be capable of baking, specifically in India.
We are answering all the basic questions related to baking (like cookies, Pizza, and cake) with your Microwave device here.
Difference Between Microwave & Microwave Oven?
What is the difference between Microwave and Microwave-Oven (Microwave with Convection mode)?
A microwave is a basic gadget that is primarily used for heating. It throws micro-waves horizontally which helps heat up the stuff pretty quickly.
Microwave Oven on the other hand is an extension of a basic Microwave. The extension means that it has the additional capability to do the Oven tasks as well.
The heating system of a ‘Microwave+Oven’ is a bit more complex and throws heat from all sides and hence helps in the baking process. The convection mode is the term that is used by manufacturers to market Microwaves that can also do baking.
Should we buy a standalone oven or Microwave Oven or basic Microwave?
Microwave with convection mode is the best value for money if you want to do ‘Ek teer se do nishaane‘ (solve two purposes with one arrow).
We also did the same and bought the microwave convection while we were in India.
If you do not plan to do any baking, I would recommend buying only a Microwave as it will cost you much less than the microwave with convection mode.
FAQ
You cannot bake Pizza in a simple Microwave.
Some of the basic microwaves might help you bake something and some people might contest this as well if they have done baking with them.
But, technically, they are not made for baking and you might not be able to achieve the same level of results as you might achieve with Microwave Oven.
A simple microwave can help you cook the cake but would not be able to give the brown crust. If you are okay with sacrificing the brown and crispy crust, you can actually use a Microwave for baking as a hack.
We advise you to either use Microwave with convection or Oven. Did you know that you can bake in a pressure cooker?
The temperature and time settings should be the same in Microwave convection as you would use in the standard Oven.
The recipe should remain the same.
You can use either convection mode or micro with convection mode for baking in microwave convection.
Both modes (simple convection or micro + convection) serve the same purpose. The difference is that micro+convection mode runs on micro mode for some time and convection mode for the rest of the time. This is done to bake the food item on varying levels of heat at different points in time.
For example, if you set the total time as 30 minutes, the device will run on micro mode for 30% of the time and the rest 70% of the time on Convection.
This percentage division depends entirely on your particular device and model. Check the device manual for more information.
The device manufacturing companies argue that the micro+convection mode cooks or bakes the food faster than the simple convection mode. We have not verified this claim but it seems logical.
As per our own experience, we have not found Borosil baking dish (glass) good for baking. They are too thick and we have seen that the cake or any other stuff that you bake does not bake well from the bottom portion.
Basically, the portion which is hidden deep inside the utensil would not bake well.
It is advisable to use other bake-ware made with aluminum or steel with thin skin. This helps in baking the stuff evenly on all sides.
We use the standard microwave-safe utensils for heating and oven-safe ones for baking.
Normally, it is written on the utensil itself about its safe usage.
Pre-heating is the process of getting the microwave oven warmed up before baking.
This is the same as you would heat up the griddle before cooking chapati or heat up the oil before frying.
These days, almost all new microwave ovens or plain ovens have the automated option of pre-heating where you just need to select the temperature and start the pre-heating.
If you do not have this option or want to do it manually, then just select the temperature as per your recipe and start the equipment with nothing in it for the specified time.
For e.g. a recipe might ask you to pre-heat the oven for 2 minutes at 400 F.
We have used both Microwave Convection and an Oven to bake our cakes. They are almost the same. A standalone Oven is definitely better but microwave convection is nothing less too.
What this means is that you can very well use Microwave Convection to bake with no worries about the quality of baking. We have not found any considerable difference.
Here is the Veggie Pizza that we baked using Microwave Convection.
As a matter of fact, we have used a pressure cooker to bake cakes with the same level of quality as any other Over or Microwave-Oven!
You can check out on your own the Molten Lava Cake in Cooker and Chocolate Nuts Cake In Cooker recipes.
You can use the same recipe in both microwave convection and microwave oven without any changes.
We have tried and tested various temperature settings while baking in both Oven and Microwave Convection and found them to be the same.
Our experience with the FREE utensils is bad. They just melted away when we tried to bake but worked fine when we used them just for heating.
What this means is that the FREE ones are only good for microwave mode. They can’t be exposed to baking. You should buy Oven safe utensils for baking even in Microwave Oven.
It is possible that the utensils that you received FREE with your purchase are high-quality products and are Oven safe. Please check the marking on the utensil base. If it is good for Oven, you can use it for baking. In our case, the FREE ones were not Oven safe.
Microwave Oven has a different mode to set before you start doing anything with it. Make sure that you have set the Oven/Bake mode before starting to bake.
Normally, the default mode is Microwave i.e. heating.
You can grill on the glass turntable of the microwave convection grill.
The only thing is that the lower portion of the food item may not grill well. So, it is obviously better to use a grill if you have it but not absolutely necessary.
Microwave Oven in India vs USA
In some countries like the USA and UAE, Microwave Oven is not marketed as the one capable of baking.
The microwave oven and microwave convection look the same and hence do not get confused.
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Please make sure that the device’s details do mark it as having ‘CONVECTION‘ mode (in addition to Microwave Oven), if you want to bake cakes, cookies, and Pizza especially in India, Australia, and the UK.
If the Microwave Oven does NOT have ‘Convection’ mode, it is NOT capable of baking.
Baking Dishes That We Use
We use these basic baking dishes for all our recipes at inHouseRecipes:
#1 Bread Baking Pan – This rectangle pan is used for baking bread or bread-shaped cakes.
#2 Pizza baking dish – Circular pan with an opening in the middle. This helps in pushing out the Pizza easily after baking.
#4 Cup Cake Baking Tray – Have small circular holes for baking multiple cupcakes at the same time.
Use can buy a collection of these sets from Amazon easily in your country.
Do you have anything to add to this article? Please share in the comments section.
Your suggestions/corrections and advice are most welcome.