Baking in OTG

If you are looking for OTG baking recipe's, scroll down. some basic questions i usually get from my reader's are shared here to make it useful to all.

What is OTG?

The abbreviation for OTG is Oven Toaster Griller. In layman's point of view, You can bake a cake, toast a bread and also grill a paneer, etc.

What is the difference between Microwave Oven and OTG? 

In Microwave oven, cooking is done through heat waves. Its more similar to our Pressure Cooker. There are microwave Oven's with Convection and Grill mode, in which you can bake and grill. so understand, if yours is just a microwave without convection, you cannot bake!!

In OTG, baking is done with the heat of rods. its more like a traditional oven. Whenever i bake a cake in my microwave, the top part of the cake becomes harder. but in OTG, cake turns out as good as in the bakery shops. so in my opinion, there is difference in baking in microwave and in OTG.

What to Buy Microwave oven or OTG?

It depends on your needs. if you are interested only in baking cakes/cookies or making some Grilled Non-veg dish, you can blindly go for OTG's.

But you cannot use the OTG for cooking or re-heating purposes.

What I do with my Microwave is?

I boil milk, re-heat my  rice, sambhar or curry. i steam vegetables in my microwave. My cooking gets over fast, with the use of microwave oven. I also cook my basmati rice in it, as it comes out grains apart.

So, see for what purpose you are going to buy and decide accordingly.

 How to Use OTG?

First Refer the Manual and wait for the demo person to give you the demo.

How to Pre-heat the oven?

Both the Top and Bottom rods HEATED UP/ Toast Mode:

Pre-Heating the oven is must, before you start to put some stuff into the oven. Heating up both the top and bottom rods at certain temperature mentioned in the recipe for about 10 minutes is Pre-heating the oven.

You could use this toast mode(both top and bottom rods heated) for pre-heating the oven and also use the same mode to toast the bread.

Bottom Rods heated up / Bake mode:

If the bottom rods alone heats up, then its the bake mode. cake has to be baked only in this mode!
Be it cakes, cookies, bread, pizza's, anything which calls for baking should be done only in this bake mode.

Grill Mode/ Top rod heats up:

What i do with Grill mode is, after baking cakes, pizza's,bread, cookies anything, i grill them for 2 to 3 mins, to get the crispier/browning effect on the top of cakes.etc.

You can also grill paneer and some non-veg stuffs with the rod, that you would have got.

Why the Cake did'nt rise in bake mode?

Note: in pic, the wire wrack is in bottom wrack(1). always place the wire wrack in Middle Wrack(2)

* Make sure to use aluminium tin/moulds for baking cake.

* Also line the tin with butter paper or aluminium foil sheet.

* Pre-Heat the oven for 10 min at 180C.

* Bake the cake in bake mode (Bottom rods alone should heat up) for about 35 - 45 mins. at 180C or the temperature specified in the recipe.

* Make sure to place the wire wrack in the middle wrack.

*Cake has to be baked for at least 30-40 mins. cupcakes takes 12-15 mins. so wait for enough time to get it raised and baked.

* If you have used eggs, baking powder, baking soda properly, the cake would definitely rise.

Hope i clarified you as much as i can. if you have further doubts, feel free to mail me at lavraj2k4@gmail.com

Happy Baking!!


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OTG Recipe's:

I bought my OTG, in the mid of last year. But i kept it unused for 4 months. I read lots of blogs, sites and book's, learned few techniques of baking. I asked my blogger friends, so many doubts, they were kind enough to clarify me in instant. with all the theory learned, i started to step on to practical with my OTG
1 year back. Here are my few experiments.

Basic Chocolate Cake:

Pumpkin Pie:

Brownie:

Vanilla Cupcakes:

Yet to come Recipes:

Tomato Pizza: with home made pizza base.

I just loved working on the pizza dough. It was a Great pizza experiment day!

Ladenia / Olive Oil Bread: from Rachel's blog.

After tasting these Bread at our last blogger meet, i instantly fell in love with this bread. Thank You Rachel for the Great Treat!

Focaccia:

 I should say, this was super hit at my home.

Few more coming up:

we enjoyed all the three cookies.

I thought i lost all the above pics as the system underwent format recently. but luckily found out at Picasa. I don't want to loose again..thus its here today for your eyes.