Beyond Bake: Put Your Multifunction Oven’s Cooking Modes to Work
Most of us bake everything on one setting. Here is what the other symbols on a multifunction oven do, and when a cake, a pizza or a tray of potatoes is better off with a different kind of heat.
A field guide to the dial
Pick the result first, then the heat. Top and bottom heat, fan, grill and base heat each send energy to a different part of the food. The exact menu depends on your oven model.
- The result you want
- The heat, and the shelf
- Your tin and your oven’s manual
Walk into most kitchens and you will find a multifunction oven used as a one-function oven. The dial lives on the same symbol it was turned to the day the installer left, and everything from banana bread to Sunday’s chicken goes in on it. That works, more or less. But the other symbols are not decoration, and a few minutes learning them can be the difference between a sponge that rises evenly and one that domes and cracks.
Each mode is just a different arrangement of the same few parts: an element in the roof, one under the floor, a ring element at the back and a fan. Learn which parts each symbol switches on and you can predict what it will do to your food.
Newmatic’s ovens come with different capacities and programme counts. This guide explains the main modes in plain terms, then shows how those differences play out when choosing a model and cooking a meal.
In this article
01
Read the heat behind the symbol
An electric oven has a small cast of characters: an upper element, a lower element, a ring element wrapped around the fan at the back, and the fan itself. Every mode on the dial is a different combination of those four, and each combination puts the heat in a different place.
That is why a fan symbol on its own tells you little. In one mode the fan blows air heated by the rear ring. In another it stirs heat from the top and bottom elements. On a defrost setting it may move air with no heating at all. Same fan, three different jobs.
The whirr you hear after switching off is usually the cooling fan, a separate part that keeps the controls and the surrounding cabinet from overheating. It is normal, and it does not mean the oven is still cooking.
Your oven’s manual has a chart that matches each symbol to its elements. Keep a photo of it on your phone for the first month. When a recipe gives one temperature for conventional ovens and another for fan, use the one that matches the mode you have actually chosen.
02
Top and bottom heat
This is the classic setting, sometimes called conventional or static. Heat comes from the roof and the floor, and the air is left to move on its own. Many bakers prefer it for cakes, tarts and anything cooked on a single shelf, because still air is gentler on a rising batter.
Shelf position does a lot of the work. Too high and the top browns before the middle sets; too low and the base darkens first. For most cakes, the middle shelf is the safe start. SBS Food’s recipe editor suggests 180°C conventional as a sensible default when a baking recipe does not say which kind of oven it was written for.
Give the oven time to settle. A cake that goes into a half-heated oven gets a slow, uneven start, and every peek through an open door lets heat escape. Wait for the preheat signal, then resist opening the door until at least two-thirds of the way through the bake.
Ovens do not always run true. When the consumer group Which? tested ovens, it found some that climbed to 220°C when set to 180°C, and one corner of a cavity reading 30 degrees below the dial. A cheap stand-alone oven thermometer, moved to a few spots, will tell you how yours behaves. Then change one thing at a time: shelf, tin or temperature, never all three.
03
The fan, and the 20-degree rule
Fan or convection mode uses the ring element at the back, with the fan pushing that hot air around the whole cavity. Some ovens also offer fan-assisted top and bottom heat, which adds moving air to the conventional elements. They sound alike but cook differently, so check which one your recipe has in mind.
Moving air strips away the cool layer that clings to food, so heat gets in faster. That is why the usual advice is to set a fan oven about 20°C lower than a conventional recipe asks. It also means more even heat from shelf to shelf, which is handy for two trays of biscuits or vegetables at once.
Do not overload it, though. Which? suggests more than two shelf levels at once tends to give poorer results, and a tray packed edge to edge with wet vegetables will steam rather than roast. Two trays with gaps between the pieces will do better than one crowded tray at a higher temperature.
The fan can work against delicate bakes. It can set the outside of a cake before the middle has finished rising, which is how you end up with a peak, a crack or a lopsided top. For sponges and custards, many cooks switch back to top and bottom heat. For roasting, crisping and batch baking, the fan earns its keep.
04
The grill: heat from above
The grill sends strong radiant heat down from the roof element onto the top of the food. It is the setting for browning a gratin, bubbling cheese on toast or finishing a crumble that has cooked through but still looks pale.
Many ovens offer two widths: a small central grill for one or two portions and a wide grill that covers the whole tray. Use the small one for small jobs. There is no point heating the full width of the roof for two slices of toast.
Fan grill adds moving air to that top heat, which helps thicker pieces such as chicken thighs or a rack of ribs cook through while they brown. It is still a distinct mode, with its own shelf and temperature guidance, so follow the manual on door position and which tray to use.
Stay nearby. The jump from golden to burnt can take less than a minute, especially on the top shelf. And remember the grill only colours the surface. A thick piece of raw meat needs a mode that cooks the middle too; the grill is for the last few minutes, not the whole job.
05
Base heat, pizza and bread
Bottom heat on its own puts the energy under the dish. It is useful for crisping the base of a quiche or a pie whose top is already done. It will not rescue every soggy bottom, though. A wet filling, a thick ceramic dish or a pastry that was not blind-baked will defeat it.
A pizza at a Naples pizzeria bakes in roughly 60 to 90 seconds in an oven well above 400°C. No home oven gets close, which is why pizza modes focus on the base. In the FM6133T-PRO manual, the pizza function combines bottom heat with the rear ring element: the floor firms up the crust while the circulating air cooks the toppings.
Bread is less fussy about one mode. A crusty loaf often likes a hot conventional oven for the first stretch; a tin loaf can do well with a fan. If your oven has a bread setting, read what it actually does before trusting it. It will not add steam or knead the dough, whatever the icon suggests.
The tray matters as much as the mode. A thin dark tin, a heavy steel sheet and a baking stone all hold and pass on heat differently. Use accessories approved for your oven, preheat a stone or steel for longer than the oven itself, and you will see the gap between home pizza and the pizzeria close a little.
06
Air fry, proving and defrost
The Newmatic catalogue lists air fry among the FM6133T-PRO’s features. The idea is simple: fast-moving hot air around food spread in a single layer, so the surface dries and crisps. Chips, chicken wings and roast chickpeas all like it. A deep pile in a small tray does not.
Use the mesh tray or accessory the manual recommends, and the shelf it suggests. Air fry does not mean no oil: a light coating still helps most foods brown. And an oven-sized cavity will not behave exactly like a small countertop basket, so start with the guidance supplied and adjust from there.
Some ovens include a low-temperature setting for proving dough. It holds the cavity warm enough for yeast to work on a cool day, without starting to bake. Treat it as a separate tool: a bowl of dough left in when someone switches to 200°C for dinner is a common kitchen tragedy.
Defrost moves air without adding cooking heat. It can help with bread or pastry, but it is not a reason to leave raw meat sitting in a warm box. For meat, fish and poultry, thaw in the fridge, or in the microwave if you plan to cook straight away, and follow the usual food-safety advice.
07
Match the oven to your cooking
The catalogue lists the FM6133T-PRO with a 72-litre cavity, 13 programmes, touch controls, a triple-layer door and air fry. It is the model to look at if you want the widest choice of modes in Newmatic’s Professional Series.
The rest of the range takes a simpler line. The FM6113T has a 65-litre cavity and 11 programmes, the FM673 is 65 litres with seven, and the FE633 is also 65 litres with a short list of basics. The right one depends on the modes you will use, the controls you like and the space on the shelf, not the number on the box.
A shorter list is not a lesser oven. If you mainly bake and roast, top and bottom heat, a fan and a grill cover most of the cooking in this guide. If you make pizza on Fridays, prove dough at weekends and want to retire the countertop air fryer, the extra modes start to pay their way.
Try the hardware, too. Open the door, slide the racks, lift your heaviest casserole in and out. If you are still sorting out the categories, our microwave, convection and multifunction oven guide explains the differences before you compare individual models.
08
Make it a habit
Plan a meal by the heat each dish needs. Potatoes want space and moving air. A cake wants a quiet single shelf. A fish pie wants a few minutes under the grill at the end. Forcing everything through one setting means at least one dish is always compromising.
For the first few weeks, keep notes: mode, shelf, tin, temperature, result. It takes ten seconds and saves a lot of guesswork, especially if your old oven ran hot or cold. Within a month you will have your own cheat sheet, written for your oven and your recipes.
Small habits save energy as well as dinners. The European Commission’s energy-label guidance suggests baking dishes back to back while the oven is hot, keeping the door shut and switching off about ten minutes before the end of a long bake, letting the stored heat finish the job.
Visit a Newmatic showroom with a list of the meals you cook most often. Compare the modes against that list, try the controls and confirm the installation sizes before the cabinets are made. Once each symbol has a purpose, the dial stops being a mystery and starts being useful.
