Cook delicious meals with our top picks

We put all of our ovens through standard tests to see how well they cook. Evenness of heat is very important, particularly when cooking sensitive items, such as Yorkshire puddings or cakes. To test this, we fill a baking tray with ceramic beads and heat the oven to 200°C. We then use a thermal camera to take an image of the beads, to see how heat is distributed, while an infrared heat gun is used to measure temperature at the front and back of the tray.

We use slices of bread spread across a shelf to measure how evenly an oven can grill and which areas, if any, it can’t reach.

We measure power usage while cooking a batch of oven chips. This is particularly important when testing ovens with special features, as we can tell you if they save you money, as well as if they’re any good.

When we have an oven with a temperature sensor, we cook a chicken breast and set the oven to 74°C, so we can see if the results are what they should be: perfectly cooked with no pink, yet not dried out.

Finally, we tell you how easy the oven is to use, and connect it to any smart apps to see if they add extra features and are worth using.