August 2008
The great cookie bake-off
Do three oven fans make a difference?
Samsung says the third convection fan in its first-ever smoothtop electric range, the $1,300 FTQ386LWUX, helps ensure more-even
cooking than you’ll get with the usual one or two fans. The range’s convection oven yielded good, relatively even cookies
in our usual test with two racks full of sugared cookies. But many other models baked just as evenly with just one or two
fans and, sometimes, without a convection oven.
Would a third rack of cookies bring out the third fan’s hidden talents? To find out, we loaded the Samsung range with 36 cookies (see photo) and baked an equal amount into the $2,000 LG LRE30955, a similarly sized electric smoothtop range that baked equally well with two fans in our regular tests.
The Samsung baked our test cookies evenly enough to satisfy the most discerning sweet tooth, even with three full racks. So did the two-fan LG range.
The Consumer Reports take: A convection oven can contribute to faster roasting and more-even multirack baking. But more convection fans don’t necessarily guarantee better baking.
(If you’re into appliance battles, read about our range-vs-microwave cook-off.)
Would a third rack of cookies bring out the third fan’s hidden talents? To find out, we loaded the Samsung range with 36 cookies (see photo) and baked an equal amount into the $2,000 LG LRE30955, a similarly sized electric smoothtop range that baked equally well with two fans in our regular tests.
The Samsung baked our test cookies evenly enough to satisfy the most discerning sweet tooth, even with three full racks. So did the two-fan LG range.
The Consumer Reports take: A convection oven can contribute to faster roasting and more-even multirack baking. But more convection fans don’t necessarily guarantee better baking.
(If you’re into appliance battles, read about our range-vs-microwave cook-off.)
