I don't have an oven and I am not planning to purchase one but there are lots of recipe that need an oven. My question is, is there any way I can get the same functionality on a gas burner stove by some use of utensil or trick or hack!
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1Taking the cost and effort and the (most likely poor) results into account, for a general substitution: no. For specific cases (-> please elaborate in your question), there might be a solution.– Stephie ♦Jun 15, 2015 at 5:54
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I want that my food to be cooked , not rotten and I want the cost to be 1/4 of what an oven cost .I just want to make pastries and I don't have an oven thats it.– SanjeevJun 15, 2015 at 7:59
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1related : cooking.stackexchange.com/q/22889/67– JoeJun 15, 2015 at 10:21
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1Bake at a friends or neighbor, they may enjoy it also.– OptionpartyJun 15, 2015 at 13:30
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2i vote for the cast iron dutch oven with a wire rack inside. If you have a gas stove top you can get a piece of plate steel and put it on the burner and the dutch oven on top of that you even heat another piece of steal and place it on top. the steel with retain and transfer heat better longer. i keep one in my oven. Counter top toaster over would be easier.– Alaska ManMar 7, 2017 at 4:38
7 Answers
When I was young in Asia, my mom would bake a cake on a coal stove in a cast iron pot. Hot coals were then added on top of the lid as a secondary heat source.
No, no standard recipe for baking will work on a gas stove.
There are a few forgiving types of baked good (like some quickbreads) for which you could find special-tailored recipes which can work on a stove. The recipes are fussy, the result is not as good as oven baked, and they are exceptions. User2052413's answer is an example for one of these recipes. Almost all of the things you could bake in an oven (such as pastries) cannot be made this way at all.
If you want to bake cakes, you need an oven of some type, the standard domestic electric oven being the easiest solution. There is no way around it.
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1There are countertop ovens, meant for this sort of situation, although they don't hold their temperature quite as well. There's also toaster ovens, but they're even less precise. And there's also the relatively new 'multi cookers' (slow cooker + hot enough to sear on) that claim you can use them as an oven).– JoeJun 15, 2015 at 14:25
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1@joe Oh, countertop ovens are quite good, I have used almost exclusively a countertop oven for the past 10+ years. I just count them as a subtype of "domestic electric oven", so I didn't mention them as an option on their own. Ovens sold as "toaster ovens" are, in my experience, a replacement for a broiler, but you can't fit a cake inside anyway (not even 15 cm pan), they're either not deep enough or not tall enough depending on style.– rumtscho ♦Jun 15, 2015 at 14:30
I am disappointed in some of the answers given to you. Without an oven, the best place to get cooking cakes, biscuits, bread, etc. is on an internet camping site. Try Pininterest or any camping blog, or camping cookbook. You will find out you can cook almost everything without an oven. Some recipes will need a little modification. But cast iron skillet, 10" pan and dutch oven with lid, should enable you to make almost anything you want.
Peggy
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2Will those sorts of recipes work in a skillet or dutch oven on a stove, heating only from the bottom, as opposed to a campfire, with more heat all around?– Cascabel ♦Apr 15, 2017 at 6:51
There is a pan like thing from the Czech republic called a remoska that has a heating element in the lid, and apparently is surprisingly good for things like pies.
There is also the option of a Dutch oven which could go on your hob, or for some specific purposes a pie iron, which can be used over a fire, but also probably on your stove.
I found this question/answers after making pastry for a quiche and then finding that the oven didn't work. Subsequently I had reasonable success with two deep baking trays inverted one over the other on the hob, with some metal skewers under the enclosed muffin tray to raise it slightly and prevent burnt base. I also put a large lidded pan of just boiled water on top to stabilise the temperature. The remoska would be much more energy efficient.
I don't have the use of an oven at the moment either. I can't just go buy a new oven or bench baking thing etc. I attempted to pull a toaster apart and put it back together again in an old fish smoker so that I had like a top & bottom element, or just a top one. It worked really well... once... I managed to get my flaky pastry to rise and turn golden brown, and looked fantastic. Well, until blackish smoke started to pour out of it and a horrid burnt aluminum smell filled the air. But keep thinking or use heaps of cigarette lighters.
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1Welcome! Considering that your "solution" didn't end up working very well, I'm not sure this is an answer, particularly as you haven't really fully explained your solution in a way that might be useful.– CatijaSep 11, 2015 at 22:21
Use a large Baking tray on top of the gas burner hobs, place what every you want to cook on the backing tray then cover with aluminium foil, making sure the whole tray is covered and tuck the foil around the edges. Not too tight though, you need to ensure that the foil can rise. Ive used this method with mulitple vegetables,chicken, fish and recently, puff pastry mini pizettes :)
I have done so in a gas grill. Lid down. You need to be able to hold even heat. put on top rack in a double baking pan. For a few simple things. But be cheaper to use a oven & better.