Toaster Oven and Baking

[Ninetail]

I'm trying to bake cakes such as the typical multiple layered ones with icing on top and cream between the layers. I've tried to search for it but every single recipe I've come across requires you to "heat the oven to some degrees." My toaster oven only shows 1100W and lower levels, but no temperature. Are there any recipes that just tell you to bake at 1100W for a certain duration? Or is there another way of doing this?

[pnksweater]

Do you own a rice cooker? There are some recipes floating around there for making a cake in your rice cooker. The resulting cake will have a bit of a dome on it, but you can always slice that off and eat it. You would probably need a long stretch of time to cook each layer in the rice cooker, but I don’t see why that wouldn’t work.

Otherwise, make some test cakes and try out different time and heat settings to see which work the best. A toothpick or bamboo skewer can be inserted mid cooking to test for internal doneness, too.

[fiori]

I use my toaster oven to make (british) flapjacks and cookies. Its a case of trial and error tbh. Perhaps not the best piece of advice, but just turning it on and giving it a go is all I can say

[cookiehearts]

I would think that any recipes which don't require serious rising (like fiori mentioned flapjacks) could potentially work. Maybe baked cheesecakes too? (Though you don't need an oven for many cheesecake recipes) But probably recipes using a lot of eggs would require something hotter to rise.

There are lots of bread/cake recipes you can make using a rice cooker, and I was looking at some on this blog today. But yes it will take awhile using a rice cooker to make a multi-layer cake.

If you really like baking though, invest 3 man and buy yourself a decent oven. You can probably even sell it when you leave.

[Ninetail]

Thanks for the help, everyone. I'll do the trial and error thing first, then the rice cooker if the oven toaster doesn't work. I never thought you can use that before.

[word]

Check the recycle shops; we got our big huge awesome oven for 8000. It is glorious; we've made all kinds of awesome stuff.

[Musashi]

Maybe invest in a cheap used convection oven.

I use mine for baking and cooking all the time.

A toaster oven is no good for that IMO.

[ume no hana]

I found this: http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Rice-Coo ... 1558322035

or if you know Japanese/can get someone to translate for you:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E7%82%8A%E9%A3 ... 80&sr=1-22

I used to own this book and yes, you can bake cakes, cinnamon rolls and brownies in your rice cooker! I know because I made them!
Here are some pictures (yes, they were all made in a rice cooker)!

Apple Cake.jpg (31.45 KiB) Viewed 1832 times

cinnamon rolls.jpg (42.63 KiB) Viewed 1832 times

[kimmiller1]

If you have a microwave oven, I recommend using that. Most Japanese microwaves have an oven function where you can set the temperature in celcius. It cooks pretty slowly and will take more time than what the normal recipe will say, so I recommend keeping an eye on it while its baking, but I made pumpkin pie for thanksgiving, and christmas cookies in my microwave with no problems.

I also agree with the rice cooker. I was bored one day and dumped pancake mix into my rice cooker, and it came out looking like a big fluffy cake. So I bet if you used cake mix it would work out perfectly. I just set it on the normal length of time that I would cook rice in, except I think there was a setting to use more steam when its baking or something. Also, have you ever eaten mushi pan? I was told those are made in a rice cooker, so I would try looking up recipes for mushi pan or steam cake to get an idea of what settings you would need to use.

Hopefully this helped!

[Stiltzkin]

I bake in my moven (standard microwave + oven combo) every week! Don't bother with the toaster oven for baking. The moven works just fine. Just use the oven setting and add about 3-5 minutes on to the cook time for preheating. Sometimes things do take a little longer and if you're doing cookies you'll have to do several batches, but it works great! My coworkers can vouch for that (om nom cookies..). I've baked cakes, cookies, pies, cheesecake bars, breads, casseroles, chicken, etc... Everything has been fine. If you REALLY don't like using your microwave for that, then invest in a dedicated oven. It won't cost you more than 3 man for a good one. I would check recycle shops to get one cheaper. Personally, I would just use my microwave if I were you.

Also, it's worth noting that sugar here is made from beets so it is much less sweet than the cane sugar you might be used to from back home. If you want things to taste the same, I recommend adding some extra sugar. Happy baking!

[Gizmotech]

I'll support using the "oven" feature on the microwave, but a couple of words of warning. It is not actually an oven at all. It's still blasting whatever you put in with the standard microwave heater, just doing it in smaller intervals. This means it does not work well for things that are supposed to be heated from the outside in (like pies) as the insides cook far quicker than they should. Also has a nasty tendency to turn things into rubber (never again doing baked chicken in it).

If you go to your local Japanese book store you can find recipe books designed specifically for your moven (I kinda like that word....), as the damn things are everywhere in Japan.

[Shepherd]

To the OP,
I had a similar situation, and since my husband was a French chef back home and is now a pastry chef here in japan, we couldn't settle on a toaster oven,so we got an oven, a real one. Now, we can enjoy making all our baking recipes from back home ^^ can't make proper french food without an oven!
if you intend on staying for more than a year, investing in an oven is a good idea.

[Ninetail]

After experimenting a bit, I've found that both my microwave and toaster oven works fine for smaller baking projects. The microwave seems to be better, though.

I've also checked out the ovens at the recycle shops. Sometime they have decent ones for really cheap, but all are too large for my apartment.

Everyone, thanks for your inputs. Problem solved.