How do you choose the best mini oven?

Besides knowing what a mini oven is exactly, there are 2 things you should ask yourself when choosing a mini oven:

• What are you going to prepare in the mini oven?
• How big can the mini oven be?

A mini oven is a freestanding oven of a compact size. Because the oven is freestanding, you can easily place it on your fridge, on the counter, or in a kitchen cupboard. When installing it in a kitchen cupboard, check in the manual if this is permitted. It's possible that the hot air must be able to escape. You can also easily place the mini oven in the vestibule at the campsite, so you can start the Sunday morning with warm sandwiches.

A freestanding mini oven often has a combination of several preparation systems:

• Upper heat: this is useful when the top of your apple pie isn't baked yet and you want to bake it evenly.
• Simultaneous upper and lower heat: this ensures an even baking result for your pizza, for example.
• Grill: suitable to grill a piece of meat on high power.
• Fan oven: this cooks your lasagna equally everywhere.
• Lower heat: you only cook the bottom of your dish, such as a pie crust.
• Steam: this allows you to prepare your food in a healthy way.

An advantage of a freestanding oven is that you can place it anywhere in your kitchen. Keep the the height, width, and length in mind when you buy an oven and make sure that there is still some room left on all sides. Also take into account the opening direction of the door. Does the door open from top to bottom? Don't place the oven too high.

You can often use a mini oven on the campsite as well. You do have to check the website of the campsite to see how much amperes you're allowed to use. The maximum voltage in Europe is 230V. If you multiply the amperes by the voltage, you get the number of watts. This is usually somewhere between 800 and 1000W. If that's the case, you need at least a 6-ampere connector on the campsite. When you're using the oven, it's wise to turn off other electric products.