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LAURA DE BARRA regularly brings her lifestyle and home maintenance masterclasses to the Glenveagh Home Magazine on TheJournal.ie. This week: how to give your oven back its like-new shine.
A TASK WE all avoid! Oven cleaning is one of the least enjoyable ‘big jobs’ in the home so let’s make as painless as possible.
My rule is to never clean kitchen appliances or fittings with anything you wouldn’t clean a plate with, so we are going for all-natural cleaners here. While harsh oven cleaners can be super effective and quick, they can linger for a long time after use and let’s face it, are neither good for us or the environment.
The best part about using natural cleaners is that they only usually need time to be as effective as harsher cleaners, which means you get to do something else while they work their magic!
For really grim ovens, it is best to leave one of the stages over night so I would recommend starting your oven clean in the evening and coming back to it the next morning when everything has loosened.
You’ll need:
1. Prep
Switch off the oven and make sure it has cooled down if it was recently used. When cleaning your oven, avoid touching or applying product to heating elements.
A current Instagram cleaning trend is to take your oven door apart to clean it in pieces. Whilst it gives you access to harder to reach places, these doors are not designed to be disassembled and the little bit of effort required to get to those areas is worth it. If you are removing your oven door etc regularly, it will have an impact on the life of the door.
Also, to note, I have seen this go wrong so many times. When the glass is removed from the door, the door will spring up really quickly which often leads to the glass getting knocked and smashing. The only way to maintain a stunning oven door is to wipe it down after each use.
2. A goddess bath
Prep a basin and a sink of glorious warm water and washing up liquid. Slide out all racks and pop them in to sink to soak. If only half fits, remember to rotate them every so often so all parts are getting some stunning soaking time. Many people soak theirs in their bath, but I will leave this one up to you…
If it is super bad, consider an overnight soak.
3. Double cleanse
With a damp cloth, wipe down the interior of the oven. This will drag any crumbs or dirt out of your way. Pay particular attention to the rubber seals and the hinges of the door. (never apply anything other than water to rubber seals, many products can damage this)
Ovens build up so much grease that it’s best to wash the whole interior down first using your cloth and basin of soapy water. Washing up liquid is a fantastic degreaser so it will cut through even the toughest of grease without harming the oven. This will remove the first layer of grease and make tackling dried on stains later, much easier.
4. Apply a mask
Next, mix some bicarbonate of soda and water until you have a thick paste. You’ll have noticed which parts of the oven have the worst stains (most likely on the floor of the oven where something has dripped down) during the last stage and need your attention here.
Coat them in your bicarb paste, using your gloved hands – as though you are applying a face mask to her. If you have a lot of brown specks on the walls of your oven, its best to also apply a light coat to these. Lastly apply a light layer to the oven door.
This needs to be left for a minimum of three hours but is best overnight. So go do something glorious or sleep while she works her magic on your oven interior.
5. Apply acid
Ready for the next stage? Pop an old towel under the door of the oven to catch any spills. This is about to get messy!
Grab a dry cloth and wipe out as much of the bicarb as will come away easily. The rest will be removed with vinegar so don’t worry about any that is left, you just want to get the thicker lumps out of your way.
Using your spray bottle of vinegar, spray down the interior and door of the oven. When bicarb and vinegar meet, they create a dramatic, bubbling reaction. So, don’t be alarmed if you see it rise, hiss and bubble in this stage. This will eat into any of the more stubborn stains, making them a lot easier to remove.
Using a damp cloth, wipe down all surfaces. You may need a couple more rounds of vinegar spray if you have a lot of staining coming away. (Vinegar is also great for the oven glass as it leaves it super shiny.)
Most of the staining will have lifted at this stage, but if you are left with some really tough patches on the floor of the oven you can use a scraper on these. Non scratch scrapers are so easy to pick up and are not expensive (a couple of quid usually). They are also great for using on stubborn stains on your racks. If you don’t have one, a spoon can also work here – but be careful not to scratch the oven’s interior.
6. Final cleanse
Last stage is to wipe the oven down with damp cloth to remove any product. Pop your racks back in and she’s finished!
Tips to avoid food and grease build up in the future:
When we finish cooking, we wipe down all surfaces as we clean up, but rarely include the oven, which has had the most exposure to grease.
After each use, a layer of grease, along with food spills will cool down and set. It will then burn during the next use, turning it brown and making it harder remove. A simple clean after each use will stop all of this. In future, once the oven has cooled down, wipe down the interior and the door with warm soapy water. This will remove any grease that has clung to the surfaces during cooking and prevent build up.
As with the dishwasher, oven racks and trays should be taken out and wiped down after use. If you avoid doing this, you’ll end up with those brown stubborn marks that will need a deep clean all over again. The few minutes that it takes is super worth it.
Want more tips and hacks? Laura de Barra’s debut book, Gaff Goddess: Simple Tips And Tricks To Help You Run Your Home is on shelves now, published by Transworld Ireland. Buy it here or in all good bookshops, and follow Laura on Instagram for even more cleaning and lifestyle tips.
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It’s 2014 and people still don’t take videos in landscape mode….
It should be a crime punishable by death.
That helps my fear of flying
Pussies
“We were eating and all the food just flew up in the air and pretty much bounced off and fell,”
Whatever you might say about them, Americans never lose their sense of priority.
Judging by what I’m seeing around Dublin this week I’d say Irish people have similar priorities.
Prayers are great for turbulence and bad wind I find…
Imagine if the lights were off and the cabin was black. Now that would be scary. Scientific weather planes fly into hurricanes. Turbulance does not really effect the performance of an airplane, tis a bit like a car driving on unpaved really uneven ground. Saying that I would be defo a little nervous if twas me there.
Doesn’t help my fear either and I don’t care how brave you think you are at flying, when you are in a plane that is flying through severe turbulence or being struck by lightning it’s bloody frightening and you will remember every time you get on a plane after that. I always say that it’s not a plane crash that scares me, it’s turbulence and what you go through while it’s happening, horrible….
While everybody around him prayed to their gods and made promises about what they’d do if they got out of this alive, camera guy was praying to the god of youtube views
‘C’MON BABY! LAND THIS BIRD! GIMME THEM LIKES N SHAAARESZ!’
Brilliant, Cap’n!
Thank you, Mary!
All the same, it proves just how robust these aircraft really are. I do feel sorry for people who are a tad nervous flying, turbulence like this must be terrifying.
I’d s##t my pants if i was on that plane.
The engineering that goes into commercial airplanes will easily handle such perceived violent levels of turbulence, such as in this video. Modern plane structures are built to handle ferocious forces up to 150% stronger than any wind pattern experienced in the last 40 years of flying, and that includes any lightening strikes.
I just wasted 3 minutes of my life FFS !!
Fxxk me, that’s terrifying and brings back memories from the early 80′s of travelling to school on the old CIE bone shaker busses, I made need counselling
It will be alri ted is out on the wing with the sticky tape
News just in: the number of aircraft that have crashed due to turbulence has been found to be ZERO.
In the history of air travel no plane has ever crashed due to turbulence. Still it seems like they had a scary experience.
Mind you, it sounds like one mad aul wan doing all the roaring.
Ps- pilots rock
Cough, cough… this Air France crash in 2009 had nothing to do with turbulence! It resulted from how the cockpit crew dealt with a blocked pitot tube which is a sensor and sends speed data to the pilot’s instrumentation. The crash was a result of how the pilots dealt with faulty instrumentation and poor cockpit communication. The only other accident cited is a BOAC plane in 1966, 48 years ago! Your link only validates Steven’s point that 1, crashes are rare, and 2. Turbulence plays a miniscule part in modern aviation, unless you want to include windsheer on descent. Turbulence is a part of every flight. You’d need to go back decades to find incidences of turbulence directly resulting in the loss of a large aircraft.
Terrifying stuff. Even worse if your family was on board but you were seated away from them
A bit of communication from the folk in the pointy bit would have calmed the passengers.
Imagine sitting there not knowing if the next bump was a mountain …
Exactly what I was thinking. The captain should have been reassuring passengers to keep them calm. Not doing his job very well.
Oh dear he might have been to busy making a difficult emergency landing…
He landed the bleedin thing you nut.
Would u like him to come out and rub people’s foreheads as well?
Emergency landing? Its severe turbulence. Any pilot worth his salt would be well used to this scenario. Most passengers only experience light to moderate turbulence so that is why it can be scary for them (understandably). Planes these days are built to withstand extreme turbulence. This probably happens quite regularly but nobody videos it. The pilot should have reassured people over the intercom. The media doesn’t help with dramatic emergency landing headlines.
Some right smug condescending smartarses out today.
The people that are paid to fly the effin thing might know what they are at and smug f****** like you might know what they are at but there are nervous passengers that clench at every bump.
Think before you type.
I experienced this turbulence before coming home from new york absolutely cacked myself, last transatlantic flight I’ve took.
Drinks trolley would be the only thing on my mind
And 2 parachutes ??
I’ve created more turbulence in an Irish pub with rear end gaseous emissions then these screaming hyenas have had to endure here.
At 2.02 in the video… “Why is he not talking to us?”..maybe it’s because he’s trying his hardest to fight the turbulence and not let the plane fly out of control??????!!!!
The video is towards the end of the turbulence after the Captain had made the decision to divert to Japan out of the storm. Pilots rarely ‘fight’ poor conditions in manual flight mode. That’s stuff for the movies. They leave it to the FMS Auto Pilots which combined usually work far better at controlling an aircraft’s speed, altitude and balance. In fact some airline procedures prohibit the pilots from taking manual control unless the auto pilot kicks outs during flight.
Sounds more like a big orgy with all the noises…
I’d say the stench was rotten after that
Probably have prayed myself,even though I don’t believe in any God.
Recorded with a potato .
Recorded by a potato. ..
Regardless of whether the seat belt sign goes off while flying I always leave it on while seated,The reason being CAT (Clear Air Turbulence ) it cannot be picked up by radar.
Normally it occurs over large mountain ranges and can make a plane drop suddenly,Lifting people out of their seats hitting the overhead luggage bins.
Even in the cruise flight crews leave the lap belt on at the pointy end.
Normally CAT would have been reported by other planes on the same route
*I’m going to die. Quick get the camera. One to look back on in years to come eh? Oh wait…*
‘Twas a rollercoaster of a ride
I bet half of you pussies would shit your pants if this happened, big men behind the computer…priceless
Maybe it was caused by the lad who had his phone turned on and recording a video during the flight????
I was kinda hoping someone would go for a pee but it might have ruined the camera guys big moment.
They say flying is the safest form of transport but yet I’ve been watching Air Crash Investigation on a daily basis for a couple of years now !
imagine watching car crash investigation so.
Link to the video ? The one in the article says it’s been removed by user,
I’m terrified of flying. I’ve flown a good deal around the world none the less. I’ve got claustrophobia to, that doesnt help. Flying is hours of sheer scary boredom where you feel every bump and turn and can sense the changes in speed and direction. Other people panicking when you hit turbulence is the worst, panic spreads in such a confined space. You need the pilot to explain what is happening and his reassurance that it isnt as bad or as dangerous as how it feels. Flown to Cuba twice, on 3 of the 4 flights there were quite scary incidents. Every time i get off a plane i swear i’ll never get on another one.
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