August 2008
TurboChef 30" Double Wall Speedcook oven
This high-tech appliance excels in some areas
SPEED DEMON The TurboChef 30-inch double wall oven provides state-of-the-art technology but some of its results weren’t masterpieces.
Price we paid: $7,895
Date of Consumer Reports full report: August 2008
What it is. TurboChef describes its 30-inch-wide TD030-BU240 double wall oven as a "high performance gourmet oven designed specifically for today's home chef."
Today's home chef apparently is in a rush: The top cavity on this 50-inch-high appliance uses patented "Airspeed Technology" that the company claims cooks food up to 15 times faster than a conventional oven. (The bottom cavity is a convection oven and functions like a traditional oven.) The Speedcook top oven achieves its speed feats using a microwave element, though you can't use the oven as a microwave only.
The top oven on this TurboChef lacks the traditional temperature and mode dials, replacing them with a CookWheel and CookNavigator. Instead of specifying time and temperature, you select an item from a library of recipes.
The top oven also adds four new cooking modes to the typical bake, broil, and roast: Air-crisp (described as "air-frying"); Dehydrate (low heat and air moving at higher speeds to mimic sun-drying foods); Favorites (9,000 user-stored cook settings for most-used recipes); and Toast (high heat and high airspeed to brown and crisp food like a toaster).
What we liked. If you regularly host large gatherings, a TurboChef might be a wise choice. In our testing, the Speedcook oven has zipped through frozen pizzas in a blazing 4 minutes instead of 23 minutes with a conventional oven, frozen hors d'oeuvres in 1 to 2 minutes compared with 15 minutes, a pound of frozen French fries in 4 minutes instead of 25 minutes, and 24 chocolate-chip and butter cookies in 6 minutes versus 23 minutes. Another plus is that you can use the lower oven simultaneously for standard cooking.
What we didn't like. One of the downsides we encountered with the top oven is that you can't simply select a cooking cycle, temperature, and time. If you're trying to cook something not in the TurboChef's recipe library you're forced to choose a preprogrammed setting for an item similar to what you're cooking. What's more, the owner's manual recommends that you cook only one item at a time in the Speedcook oven; that shouldn't be an issue since the oven has only a single rack and is on the small side—a claimed 2.5 cubic feet compared with 3.75 for the bottom oven.
We also found that the Speedcook oven tended to overcook the drumsticks and wings when we roasted whole chickens and turkeys. Yet when we prepared pork tenderloin and roast beef, the oven undercooked the inside while overcooking the outsides. Although we had to place the too-rare food back in for some additional time, we were able to save that oven setting into the Favorite section. Note that if you forget to save a setting, you'll have to adjust the cook time the next time you make the same item.
Bottom line. The TurboChef 30" Double Wall Speedcook Oven zipped through certain foods fast but it also cooked other items unevenly. The speed-cooking oven is on the small side and you are somewhat limited in customizing the cooking settings.
What's more, on the model we tested, the ceramic plate used for air distribution on the top oven cracked and part of it fell off. (A service technician did replace the part.) Note that we do not have frequency-of-repair data for this appliance so we cannot predict its long-term durability one way or the other.
Although the speed-cooking technology and oven look promising, there are issues, especially when you’re cooking food like thicker pieces of meat or food that doesn’t have uniform thickness. Also, the cost of the oven is steep, a high price to pay for saving time. If you’re interested in speed cooking, you might want to consider the less-expensive single-oven version of this TurboChef, which runs $5,900.
Date of Consumer Reports full report: August 2008
What it is. TurboChef describes its 30-inch-wide TD030-BU240 double wall oven as a "high performance gourmet oven designed specifically for today's home chef."
Today's home chef apparently is in a rush: The top cavity on this 50-inch-high appliance uses patented "Airspeed Technology" that the company claims cooks food up to 15 times faster than a conventional oven. (The bottom cavity is a convection oven and functions like a traditional oven.) The Speedcook top oven achieves its speed feats using a microwave element, though you can't use the oven as a microwave only.
The top oven on this TurboChef lacks the traditional temperature and mode dials, replacing them with a CookWheel and CookNavigator. Instead of specifying time and temperature, you select an item from a library of recipes.
The top oven also adds four new cooking modes to the typical bake, broil, and roast: Air-crisp (described as "air-frying"); Dehydrate (low heat and air moving at higher speeds to mimic sun-drying foods); Favorites (9,000 user-stored cook settings for most-used recipes); and Toast (high heat and high airspeed to brown and crisp food like a toaster).
What we liked. If you regularly host large gatherings, a TurboChef might be a wise choice. In our testing, the Speedcook oven has zipped through frozen pizzas in a blazing 4 minutes instead of 23 minutes with a conventional oven, frozen hors d'oeuvres in 1 to 2 minutes compared with 15 minutes, a pound of frozen French fries in 4 minutes instead of 25 minutes, and 24 chocolate-chip and butter cookies in 6 minutes versus 23 minutes. Another plus is that you can use the lower oven simultaneously for standard cooking.
What we didn't like. One of the downsides we encountered with the top oven is that you can't simply select a cooking cycle, temperature, and time. If you're trying to cook something not in the TurboChef's recipe library you're forced to choose a preprogrammed setting for an item similar to what you're cooking. What's more, the owner's manual recommends that you cook only one item at a time in the Speedcook oven; that shouldn't be an issue since the oven has only a single rack and is on the small side—a claimed 2.5 cubic feet compared with 3.75 for the bottom oven.
We also found that the Speedcook oven tended to overcook the drumsticks and wings when we roasted whole chickens and turkeys. Yet when we prepared pork tenderloin and roast beef, the oven undercooked the inside while overcooking the outsides. Although we had to place the too-rare food back in for some additional time, we were able to save that oven setting into the Favorite section. Note that if you forget to save a setting, you'll have to adjust the cook time the next time you make the same item.
Bottom line. The TurboChef 30" Double Wall Speedcook Oven zipped through certain foods fast but it also cooked other items unevenly. The speed-cooking oven is on the small side and you are somewhat limited in customizing the cooking settings.
What's more, on the model we tested, the ceramic plate used for air distribution on the top oven cracked and part of it fell off. (A service technician did replace the part.) Note that we do not have frequency-of-repair data for this appliance so we cannot predict its long-term durability one way or the other.
Although the speed-cooking technology and oven look promising, there are issues, especially when you’re cooking food like thicker pieces of meat or food that doesn’t have uniform thickness. Also, the cost of the oven is steep, a high price to pay for saving time. If you’re interested in speed cooking, you might want to consider the less-expensive single-oven version of this TurboChef, which runs $5,900.
