Sometimes in life, there are little annoyances that you work around or learn to live with. When cooking, for example, you might find yourself balancing hot pans on your draining board so they don’t burn your worktop or scrubbing for hours at food burnt onto your hob. Frustrating? Yes. Fixable? Indeed!
Whether you’re a master baker who needs order in your kitchen or a mess making genius who conjures delicious meals up from madness, we have here an array accessories and products to help you keep your oven clean, tidy and in working order. Even better, each of these handy items will give you change from a ten-pound note!*
Oven Shelf Guard
Are you the accident-prone type? If so reaching into your oven when it’s hot is a perilous endeavour; there’s a risk of brushing against the hot shelves and burning your arms. Silicone shelf guards are a handy little gadget to prevent such accidents. Silicone is perfect for the job, it can withstand high heats, is easy to clean and even easier to fit.
Josh demonstrates how in our video:
Oven Thermometer
If your food is taking longer than expected to cook or your baking isn’t rising, it sounds to us like your oven isn’t getting hot enough. And there’s only one way to confirm this – check the temperature. To do so you’ll need an oven thermometer, as per Josh’s demonstration:
If the temperature notches on your oven have worn away and finding the right temperature now involves an element of guesswork, fear not! An oven thermometer is a great quick fix or temporary solution until you have the chance to replace your oven knobs.
eSpares Tip – An oven that’s not heating up as it should might indicate a fault with the door seal or heating element, both of which will need fixing for an efficiently working machine.
Extendable Shelf
If you’ve got the family coming over for a Sunday roast or you’re hosting a dinner party, you may find your existing shelf setup limiting. Even with timings organised to military precision, you might still end up running around like a headless chicken, trying to get everything cooked. No more! An extendable shelf is what you need to give yourself more oven space; it expands to fit most ovens (though always double-check your oven measurements before buying), and it can be used as an economical replacement for broken oven shelves too.
Here’s how it works:
Oven Base Shelf
Another way to get extra oven space is with an oven base shelf. Simply put, it’s a shelf with legs that sits at the bottom of your oven.
So base shelves are easy to add and remove as necessary and will fit most ovens too (though again, please check your measurements). Even better, the shelf also doubles as a cooling tray – great for cooling bread, cakes or hot dishes you don’t want to put down on your kitchen surfaces.
Take a look at the shelf in action:
Hob Scraper
It’s inevitable that, as soon as you turn your back on your cooking, a pot will boil over. Spills on your hob are particularly annoying, as food burnt onto the hob’s surface is usually a real pain to remove. So, if you have a ceramic hob, investing in a hob scraper may save you a whole bunch of time and effort. A nice clean hob will cook your food more efficiently too – bonus!
Meat Thermometer
Lots of people overcook meat to make sure it’s completely safe to eat.
Fair enough, overdone meat is safer than meat that hasn’t been cooked properly, but a better way to avoid both overcooking and undercooking is using a meat thermometer! Just pop the thermometer into the centre of the thickest part of your sausages or Sunday roast and check the temperature to make sure your meat is perfectly cooked, juicy and tender.
Wire Brush
If you don’t find scouring pads do a good enough job when you’re cleaning your grill or oven, you need a more heavy-duty scrubber. Wire brushes make it much easier to remove burnt-on food and fat from your oven (or barbeque) and are great for removing rust too. Ensure you wipe down your oven surfaces after using a wire brush though, to avoid any stray wires that may have come loose finding their way into your food.
Micro Fibre Cloths
What should you use to wipe your oven down after you’ve finished cleaning? Funny you should ask; we have the ideal item for that too. Microfibre cloths will remove any remaining grease and grime from your oven and kill bacteria too so your cooker is left both sparkling clean and hygienic. You only need to add water to the cloths to use them – it really couldn’t be any simpler!
Glass & Ceramic Cleaner
When it comes to cleaning the glass and ceramic areas of your oven, extra-tough grime can be a serious nuisance… and the last thing you want to do is damage any surfaces using the wrong cleaning products. Fortunately, Oven Mate’s Glass and Ceramic Cleaner is here to make such struggles a thing of the past. Go on – show your hob who’s boss!
Oven Rack Cleaning Kit
It’s one thing to find a top-of-the-range cleaning product for under a tenner… but a whole cleaning kit? Well that’s something else entirely! You can easily keep your racks spick and span with Oven Mate’s Just For Racks Cleaning Kit. Say goodbye to any and all stubborn grease, dirt and filth in no time. (Warning: elbow grease not included!)
Chip Oven Tray
As delicious as chips are, cooking them in your own oven can be a real hassle. Trying to achieve that ideal level of crispiness, somewhere between charred ends and soggy middles, is harder than it sounds. That’s why it’s a good thing that the Quickachips Oven Tray is here to save the day. Designed to evenly cook your chips to perfection, this tray is also suitable for garlic bread, pastries and countless other oven snacks. Bon appetit!
Pot & Pan Pads
Finally, we have an ideal cleaning accessory for keeping pots and pans clean after you remove them from your hob. Trollull’s Pot and Pan Pads are premium quality pads full of natural soap. They offer a scratch-free alternative to cleaning stuck-on food, allowing you to soak and clean your pots and pans easily without damaging them. With these, you’re not only getting a bargain with the pads themselves, but you’re sure to save money on replacing damaged and scratched-up pots and pans in future too!
Got your eye on one (or more) of these useful oven accessories? You can find them all in our Cook Shop or on the cleaning section of our website as well as a whole bunch of other cooker accessories and dedicated oven and hob cleaning products!
