If you dread cleaning your oven because of those chemical-heavy oven cleaners (you cannot touch it with bare skin, breathe the fumes!) not to mention the expensiveness of it, here is a tip for you so your oven can be sparkly and shiny clean inside for all the holiday baking and the Christmas ham or turkey. And it is so much easier than the standard “hot water, soap, and a ton of elbow grease” method that many women do simply because of the safety issues with the oven cleaner chemicals.
First, start with a cold oven, so do it on a night you aren’t using your oven. Fill a medium plastic bowl to the halfway mark with ammonia. Set it on the rack and allow it to sit overnight in a closed oven – just the cold oven, do NOT use the clean oven cycle on the oven if you have one. In the morning, remove the bowl, wipe down all sides of the oven (the ammonia loosens all that baked on icky stuff), then give it a quick wash with hot water and soap, but with not nearly as much elbow grease as you would have used had you skipped the overnight ammonia trick.
You will now have a clean and sparkly oven, without those harsh oven cleaners, and without having to use the super hot clean oven setting on the oven!
Thanks, excellent tip. I also find that it’s useful removing old crud from pots and pans buy using oven cleaner and your creation.
excellent tip: instead of using heavy chemicals that you shouldn’t touch or get on your skin, use ammonia which is caustic, and is described, in chemical terms, as hazardous to health, skin and lungs.