How long is it since you cleaned your oven door? (nb, if it's recently then that is a rhetorical question).
Well, had you asked me that question yesterday morning then I would have had to confess that it's about ... Ummm, maybe 5 years or so?
Anyway, for some unfathomable reason I decided I WOULD clean mine yesterday.
I didn't think to take any 'before' photos but if I had I would have had to confess that embarrassingly it looked very similar to this:
That's pretty disgusting isn't it?
At least 5 years of grease and baked on gunk ...
So I googled the best way to clean it (bearing in mind I had no oven cleaner and didn't want to go out and buy some).
Loads of posts and videos extolling the virtues of bicarbonate of soda and vinegar which you apparently mixed to a paste, painted on and 10 minutes later VOILA you wipe it off and all the gunk comes with it!!!
If you don't have bicarb you can use baking soda (powder), its got bicarb in it.
If you don't have either well then you'll have to go shopping!
I followed the instructions, left it for 20 minutes (it was VERY dirty).
Wiped and ...
And, well, NOTHING really!!! A rather greasy and grubby paper towel and the door was still just as dirty!
I got a knife and started scraping leaving a lovely pattern all over the door.
I went to the shed and got a paint scraper and got to work.
More lovely patterns but still no actual glass on show.
Then I remembered I had a razor blade given to me by a friend of SD's who sprays cars. They use them to tidy up any paint accidentally sprayed on to windows and he let me have a couple when I was painting the pine cabinet (which I WILL blog about some day!).
By this time the bicarb mix had been sitting for quite some time and had dried so I sprinkled more vinegar on top and wiped it around and left it for a few minutes.
Then I got to scraping with the razor blade.
It took off a layer of gunk and grease but you STILL couldn't see through the glass!
God my oven door was MINGING!!!
To cut a long story short - I repeated this procedure about 4 times over the space of two hours taking another layer off each time and then softening the next layer with the bicarb/vinegar mix.
By the end of it I had serious cramp in my hand - my shoulder was killing me from all the scraping - my back had completely seized up from bending over and I had a blister on my thumb!
BUT!!!
I also had THIS:
 |
A sparkling glass door! |
Impressed?? ?
Miss Mac was!
Actually, what Miss Mac said was that she didn't realised you were SUPPOSED to be able to see through the door OR that the oven actually had a light in it ...
But dilemma!!!
Do I now clean my oven door on a regular basis so it never gets like that again OR (because despite the aches and pains AND the blister it was quite therapeutic), do I leave it for another 5 years so I can do it all over again?
6 comments:
WOW - that is one GLEAMINGLY CLEAN oven door - congrats. It was a rhetorical question for me as I did mine recently (can you see my halo? - it's matching yours!).
I try to clean my oven interior annually, usually around Christmas-time so it passes a health inspection for Christmas dinner, spesh if peeps are coming to dinner! So, you see, as I only did mine a few weeks ago . . . it was overdue! After that I ALWAYS vow I will do it more regularly, and without fail, I NEVER do!
xxx
It does look fabulous Sarah - I do love that you used the good old fashioned paste rather than those icky pads that threaten to choke you if inhaled!
Hugs
Di xx
Stop cooking! If you must, use an outdoor grill.
BTW, you mean you are supposed to see through that door?
Gosh, you do better than me Sarn - I am ashamed (obviously not enough not to tell you all about it though) :-) xx
I'm not a fan of those chemicals Di and this really worked (although it may have required slightly more elbow grease).xx
Excellent idea Joe, if only it were warm enough to do it for more than two months of the year here! I KNOW, you learn something new every day don't you ;-)
I am SO glad my oven door does not have a window!
That's pretty impressive. I need to try that technique on my glass 9 x 13 pans, I think. Not that they're so bad you can't read a newspaper through them...but they have that hard-to-clean gunk around the edges and corners.
I'm sure it would work Val - I'm going to try it on my Pyrex oven dishes next.
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