Fan ovens vs conventional

[Heartsease]

We have to buy a cooker for our new house, and sadly it absolutely has to be electric and only 50cm wide. The choice is pretty limited. I do quite a lot of baking and have a horror of the idea of buying a rubbish oven, but am not sure how much difference it makes whether or not it has a fan (I have had a fan for as long as I can remember). I remember my mum saying she didn't like fan ovens for baking because they dried things out but I don't know how true that is. I make pizza, bread, cakes, and roast veg, sometimes a casserole. Any wisdom very welcome!

i have both with my cooker, but i tend to use only the fan oven - my cakes get eaten quickly enough so they can't be that bad.

main difference i've noted is that the fan oven heats up a lot quicker and its the same temperature throughout. thats why i use it most - as i'm usually in a rush

We recently had to buy a new cooker, ours also had to be electric and 50cm wide.

We bought a Zanussi

www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/zanussi-zcv563dx-electric-cooker-stainless-steel-06219128-pdt.html

It has a double oven, the main oven being a fan oven.

I was a bit worried as it's my first time using a fan oven but once you get used to turning the temp down , it's no different. I've baked in mine and none of my foods (cakes, pizza's, casseroles etc) have dried out.

The only one minor complaint I have is the grill, it's energy efficient, so keeps turning itself on and off whilst cooking. It can take a while to grill large items, although by shutting the grill door helps considerably.

This is great, thank you both so much. dreamingofsun, I am also usually in a rush (and dreaming of sun!). Moonmother we have also been drawn to look at Zanussi, as they seem to be the only brand who produce a slightly higher spec for a 50cm space. The grill point is really good to know. Would you recommend it otherwise though?

Well, Zanussi are not the only brand of course, but one of the few.

prefer fan ovens.
in there you can make a few trays of pizza at once, because the heat is very even.
I bake my own bread and sometimes do a few loafs at the same time no problem.

Good point about the pizzas and loaves. I had forgotten about all the pizza-swapping my siblings and I used to do as kids, in an effort to eat at the same time.