But Will It Slide in Easy? (Electric Cookers in General)

Member Name: lamorna

Product:	Electric Cookers in General
Date:	05/07/01 (1149 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Size, easy to clean, fast

Disadvantages: burns me, steams me, exploding plates

I’ve never had a new cooker. They’ve always belonged to someone else before me. If you promise not to spread it around that I’m bit of a slut, then I confess that I’ve never cleaned an oven either. But I’d prefer you kept that to yourselves. I’ve lived in my small cottage with its galley kitchen since 1978 and everything has to be small, except the men in my life that is; I prefer them on the larger side. Now I’ve begun, I’ll continue with the issue of size.

The kitchen galley is small, but still manages to hold a fridge, washing machine, table top freezer, microwave oven, worktops, wall cupboards, large floor to ceiling cupboard, base units and double drainer and sink, and busy with the preparation of three meals a day, pots of tea, coffee, mixing Gin and Tonics , then room for me as well. Morty seems to collide into everything if he ventures in there, but I’m beginning to think that’s just a scam to avoid having to have his very own pair of Yellow Marigolds, size large!

There is just the slot for the cooker, which has to be the exact measurement, as depth and width do matter, of 22 inches deep and 19 inches wide, and more specifically, electric, and most importantly, a right handled oven door. Drop down door? Impossible, as it will only open to one third of the way down, meaning to open in any more, I’d have to stand on the work surface and lean down. Left handled oven door? I would have to stand in the sink, or actually get inside the washing machine to lever it open.

The right handled oven door still only opens two thirds of the way, which means I have to lean over from the outside and juggle roasting tins and casserole dishes precariously. Certainly never recommended after too many aperitifs; which of course I have done. But you could have guessed that couldn’t you? Friends bought me a Martini Jug, memorably christened when my daughter and her then intended cam
e to dinner. Always out to impress, I mixed Martinis according to the instructions. Fill the centre funnel with ice, fill the outer glass casing with Gin, then just show the Gin the Dry Martini, stand a few minutes (while your still able) then pour into Martini glasses and drink. Three jugs of this mixture and the dinner paid the price. I staggered to the oven, wildly thinking I could remove two whole roast ducks without incident. Duck fat flew everywhere, just like spilt milk!

It’s now a Family myth, about Lamorna and finding congealed duck fat adhering to everything for weeks later. Which leads me to cleaning ovens. How do you that? Switch any of my ovens on and anybody walking through the door will remark about the lovely smell of food, and what’s cooking. It keeps Morty happy as he thinks his dinner is always is on the go, but the oven is empty. Cleaning the oven is a physical impossibility, and as far as I’m concerned a mental one too. Which is why, after twenty three years I am on my fifth second hand cooker. They disintegrate, fall to pieces, buckle, rings fuse, ovens ignite, knobs fall off and they are ready for the tip.

Restricted by size and oven door handles, I have had four Belling Cookers during that period that have given good service, and I’ve been able to fool my friends by getting a new one and not telling them, resulting in them praising me for my cooker cleaning abilities. Even prompting them to ask me what miraculous cleaning products I used to get them back to mint condition. How could I disappoint them by admitting the truth?

The last Belling was in a sorry state, but had served me well, so a visit to my local electrical independent dealer was well overdue. He always has a few factory fresh, second hand, renovated cookers to choose from in the ‘For poor people who can’t afford new Section’ Sadly, so far, its always been a Belling, and I wanted a change. And then I saw it!


The design of all my previous regular replacement cookers hadn’t altered in twenty years. It still had the messy drip tray under the hob that was supposed to slide out easily to be cleaned. Not in my galley it didn’t! I needed a building inspector, planning permission and a surveyor to help with that job. So there, looking back at me, begging to go to a good home, was a gleaming white, modular, electric, right handled, backless, second hand Creda Capri cooker…for £100.00. Size? Size matters! I was prepared for this next deciding factor, with my tape measure in my bag along with my Rimmel and my rollups! Twenty two inches deep and nineteen inches wide. Perfect! We were made for each other. It would slide in a treat!

He knows me, my independent retailer. Any embarrassment I should feel about the state of the cooker he has to take away has long gone. I’m sure my old cooker goes back to be renovated and reconditioned and emerges factory fresh. I’m convinced that I’ve probably bought back one of my old cookers from him in the past.

I love my Creda Capri Electric Cooker. My arms and hands are covered in burns, though less frequently than at the beginning of our relationship. Everything is faster, hotter and so efficient, compared with my previously worn out, inefficient cooker. I have smashed half a dozen dinner plates , placed on a spare hotplate to warm before serving up; purely because the control knobs are all the other way round; together with which hotplate they control and the variable heat control, so the earth-shattering explosion of overheated dinner plates has startled the neighbours

The four sealed hotplates are described as ‘hotspot’ and range from 1.5Kw to a very speedy 2.0Kw, which accounts for the burnt frozen peas. The oven, with the right handled door, has ‘Credaclean’ removable side panels. I gather this is for easy cleaning, but I haven’t investig
ated this function as yet. I may enrol in my local evening classes for the ‘Basic Cleaning Skills’ Diploma! or ‘How to Prevent Your Local Electrical Supplies Dealer Put it About That You’re a Dirty Cat’ prevention scheme.

The vitreous enamel solid hob surround has no appalling tray to slide out after boiling an egg, then having to wipe up the splashes. My burns are mainly because of the puff of steam and hot air that escape from the oven when the door is opened. Isn’t steam hot?

Page 24 of the Instruction Booklet for the Creda Capri Electric Cooker is interesting bed time reading. It suggests running the empty oven on 230C for a couple of hours enabling the special enamel surface of the oven to absorb cooking soils! Allegedly I can keep my sealed hotplates clean when cold, by using a soap filled Brillo following the grain of the hotplate. Grain? All very scientific.

My mum and daughter are coming to Dorset soon, and I can’t let them down, so cooker maintenance is high on my list of priorities at the moment. Then I can relax, run it into the ground and replace it with another model for a hundred pounds in a couple of years time. It’ll probably be one of my old cast offs anyway.

So if you are limited for space as I am, need it to slide in easily, have an aversion to oven cleaning, and can only operate from the right hand side, then the Creda Capri Electric Cooker is the one to look out for. But beware, as it might be this one, recycled!

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