Moving to a new apartment - small range/oven?

Invictus

I am moving to a new apartment in a city I know quite well, and I'm trying to find a place. I've found a pretty good apartment, I think, but it has the significant downside of having a tiny apartment range and oven. The entire range is apparently 20 inches wide.

Here's the issue: I am a substantial hobbyist cook and baker. One of the major considerations for my apartment-hunting has been making sure I get a place big enough to host, with dinner parties being one of the things I'd want to host. I am used to full-size 30" range/ovens.

As an example of one of the major things I cook, I bake extensively, both home-made bread and pizza. I have a friend taking a look at the apartment tomorrow (they only take viewings during weekly business hours, and I live a few hours away with a day job), trying to check if my baking stone will fit, but I'm concerned that there may be other problems I haven't considered that I could run into.

So, to put a point on it: how big a problem is the size difference in the range/oven going to be? Is this just going to be a hassle, but doable, or should I be taking this as a bigger consideration? There are just so many issues that might come up, and not having really used smaller ranges since I started to cook, I just don't know how heavily to weigh this particular fact.

Skeith

The burners might not be smaller than what you're used to, but obviously they'll be much closer together. What it comes down to is how often you use a full range at once.

Invictus

Skeith wrote: »

The burners might not be smaller than what you're used to, but obviously they'll be much closer together. What it comes down to is how often you use a full range at once.

Yeah, I'm not concerned about day-to-day, but I am concerned about hosting dinner, when I might reasonably want a full range of things being cooked. For example, I might want a protein sauteing with a gravy in another pan and potatoes being boiled...should I just take that off the table with the size we're talking about here?

Daenris

If you're an avid cook (and especially baker) you will hate that tiny oven with a passion every day. Speaking from my experience at least, and that was when I was in college and cooked/baked much less often than I do these days.

Edit: That said, if it's at least a good quality oven, it's certainly doable. But in my experience in apartments, the small ovens tend to also be old and/or crappy ovens that won't be able to maintain a consistent temperature which will not be good for baking.

wrong_button

I don't know anyone who cooks that ever wants less space. But there's ways around it if you love the joint and the tiny range is the only thing holding you back it. Extra burners/hot plates, an invection plate, or a countertop oven (convection or other) - these add extra functionality when/where you need it and aren't insanely expensive (plus they're easily storable).

The oven might be a dealbreaker - like Daenris said, quality of the oven will definitely come into play. If you love to bake, it could lead to a lot of hair-pulling-out. I'm guessing with a box that size you're not going to chuck a whole 20lb bird in there any time soon either, but that doesn't mean you can't scale down or batch cook. You may also need to look at regearing for a small space. Your standard-issue 15x10" roll pan is going to be snug in a box that size. Depending on the burner size/output (if it's electric) might mean taking a look at your skillets and pans too.

One last thing to consider - with a range that small, and I only ask because I've seen it go both ways: Will you have sufficient counterspace for prep or floorspace to put a folding table/rolling cart/block temporarily while you work? Oven size won't matter if you haven't got space to mix the stuff to put in it!

End of the day, depends how much you love the apartment. If you're hosting, you'll definitely need to adjust your processes/what you cook to accommodate, but that's part of the fun, right?

Invictus

Hm. I had not, up to this point, seriously considered a countertop convection oven as an aid for the situation. It looks like that probably won't help me for baking bread, but it would give me more space for cooking and hosting and make it so I have to deal with the tiny crappy oven less often.

I do think even with that idea that I need to be able to fit something close to my current baking stone in the real oven for bread and pizza, and I'll know the details of whether that will be possible later today. But what kind of experience do people have with countertop convection/toaster ovens? I've been looking at this one, since it seems well-reviewed, large enough to roast dinner party amounts of veggies in, and relatively inexpensive.

davidsdurions

I had a similar issue once upon a time. It ended up being a blessing because it was the first time I had access to a gas range and oven. Gas is amazing!

Tzyr

I lived for over four years with a small 20” stove and though I wish I had more space, I was still able to do a lot of cooking and baking with it. Will add to what others pointed out though, I was fortunate in that it was a decent stove and did not have problems with it.

You do need to compensate for the size thus the size of your pots and pans matters more than how many things you want to cook at once. Mine had three small elements (6 inch) and one large (10 inch), which meant if I needed to cook multiple things at once, I had to have decent smaller pots/pans.

Even if the elements were close(r) together I still was able to use a 12 inch frying pan on the large element, and a dutch oven, and an 8 inch pot on the smaller ones all at the same time and though the space was tight, there was room.

The oven was small, about 14 inches wide and deep so I could not even get two 8 inch round pans on the same rack while baking a cake. This oven did come with three racks so I could either cook one at a time, or have one pan on each rack and just rotate them (between racks).

I also used a pizza stone, but think it was 13 inches, so not sure the size you are used to. The oven was large enough to fit my dutch oven comfortably but it was too small for a roasting pan/big roast.

I did have to get new baking sheets and found round sheets the most convenient with this size of an oven.

So as long as you have or fine with getting pots and pans and baking sheets that fit, get a good oven thermometer, and (the hard part) get an oven that is good quality but just small, you could be fine.