The oven is easily the most important item in your kitchen. Here delicious meals are prepared and wonderful cakes are baked. The oven is a glorious feature of the home, but it does need to be cleaned properly and regularly. Oven cleaning is difficult because grease and grime tend to build up and stick to the oven. This can happen rapidly, no matter how much light cleaning you do with your oven through the week as part of your domestic cleaning routine.
The following is a recipe for cleaning an oven using natural, chemical free products. This method can be applied to all types of ovens.
Ingredients
Baking soda
Water
Gloves
Dish cloth, dampened
Spray bottle
A spatula
White vinegar
Method
1. Start by removing the oven racks and any trays or items that are inside the oven. Place these aside.
2. Make up a paste by mixing ½ cup of baking soda and a few tablespoons of water. Mix it together and adjust the amounts until you have a thick and spreadable paste.
3. Coat the oven with the paste. Wearing gloves you can then spread the paste all over the oven. Make sure it covers every interior surface, but avoid the heating elements. You will need to use your fingers to get into the nooks and crannies at the back of the oven and make sure the paste is thickly set, which is why wearing gloves is a good idea.
4. Allow it to sit overnight or for at least 12 hours during the day. After this time, use a damp dish cloth and clean the dried baking soda. You may need to use the spatula to scrape the paste off where it is deeply set in the hard to reach places.
5. Next, put some vinegar in a spray bottle and dilute it with water. Spray this all over the oven, in every place that you can see. The more spray the better, in this case. The vinegar and baking soda react together and will begin to gently foam. This is helping to lift all the soap scum and grime from the oven in a natural way.
6. Take the damp cloth again, make sure it is clean, and do another wipe down. This time you will be removing the foamy baking soda and vinegar mixture. You will need to do a few wipe downs, rinse off the cloth, and repeat again to get it all out. The results will be worth the effort as you will start to notice shine.
7. Put the oven racks back in and step back to admire the cleanliness of your oven.
By cleaning your oven this way, you will save lots of money instead of buying harsh chemical oven cleaners. It is also an environmentally and safe way to clean the oven. If you have children and pets around, the baking soda mixture will not be harmful to the. However, you should also make sure they don’t put get near the oven while it is soaking in the mixture. It is best that the oven is left alone so that the mixture can set in. This is why it is best to apply the paste overnight so that kids or pets can’t get near it. Otherwise the process may need to be repeated if the mixture is disturbed.
