Freestanding ovens

For easy cleaning, a pyrolytic self-cleaning function is best – although catalytic liners also make cleaning easier.

Think about how often you use your oven and what you like to cook in it: an oven with pyrolytic self-cleaning will make life easier for those who often cook dishes that splatter oils or fats around the oven.

Pyrolytic cleaning

Ovens with pyrolytic cleaning have a special setting: the oven heats up to around 500°C, converting food residues into ash that you then wipe away. Most of the ovens have a light soil-clean (1.5 to 2 hours) and a heavy soil-clean (2.5 to 3 hours).

For safety reasons, the door automatically locks during the pyrolytic clean and is released only when the oven gets down to about 280°C. The outside of the oven is much hotter than usual while cleaning, so keep children out of the kitchen.

While pyrolytic cleaning sounds great, not all the hard work is done for you. All runners, shelves and other accessories need to be removed beforehand and cleaned separately – which can be difficult in some models. It's also worth cleaning off any coarse dirt first, and thoroughly cleaning the inside glass. And of course afterwards you have to remove the ash from the oven.

But while you still have to get your hands dirty, the pyrolytic function is chemical-free and it does thoroughly clean your oven – particularly in hard-to-reach places. We'd recommend it to anyone who can afford these types of ovens.

Catalytic liners

Some ovens have a self-cleaning surface known as a catalytic liner. This microporous coating absorbs fat splatters while the oven is cooking. While the liners protect the walls from fat splashes you still have to clean the doors, shelf supports, racks, and floor – but liners certainly make the job easier.

To get the best out of catalytic liners, regularly heat the empty oven for between 30 minutes to an hour (depending on the manufacturer's instructions).

If they're properly cared for, the liners should last a long time – but they may eventually need replacing.

Foil liners

It used to be common practice to line the base of your oven with aluminium foil or an aluminium-foil liner to save it from messy spills. Most manufacturers now warn against this because it can cause overheating and damage to the enamel interior.

You also can’t put baking dishes on the bottom of your oven to cook, which is why our useable (measured) dimensions usually vary from what’s in the manufacturers’ specs. We always measure from the bottom shelf up.

We use the same cooking tests for all stoves.

Oven

We bake scones to test how well the ovens do at high temperatures over a short time, and meringues to test them at low temperatures for a long period.

We make a freshly prepared pizza and cook it at a very high temperature for a short period to assess the oven’s ability to crisp and brown the base and evenly cook the toppings.

And we roast a whole chicken to assess how each oven copes with a non-uniform food.

Grill

We make toast and grill sausages to assess speed and evenness of grilling.

Cooktop

First we make white sauce on the simmer-burner to test the cooktop’s ability to perform at a low temperature for a long time.

Next we cook rice on the medium-sized burner. This tests the "turn down" capacity of the element and whether the burner can maintain a suitable level of heat at the lowest temperature setting.

We cook a beef and vegetable stir-fry on the wok burner or the largest element to assess its ability to deliver continuous high heat.

Our final test is chocolate-melting. Chocolate is sensitive to high temperatures: it must be melted on a very low temperature to avoid burning.

Ease of use

We look at the user-friendliness of the controls and displays, and at how easy it is to use the cooktop elements, grill trays and oven shelves. We also evaluate the tedious stuff – cleaning each stove (inside and out).