Cooking using different levels in oven help

cassie24, May 13, 3:56am
How do you get on cooking at the different levels of racks in the ove, i am cooking a roast but have to put a pudding in the oven before it finishes, but i find if i use the rack above the roast it takes longer to cook and if i use the one below it is closer to the element so will cook quicker, it won't fit on same level as the roast so how do you do it?

245sam, May 13, 4:12am
cassie24, do you have fan-bake on your stove and what type of pudding are you making?
If you do have fan-bake, then use it and lower the temperature you'd normally use by 20°C and cook your meal for the time you would normally using conventional bake. If using fan-bake it would depend on what type of pudding I was making as to whether I put the pudding above or below the roast.
If you don't have fan-bake can the pudding not be cooked while your meat is having its after-cooking/pre-carving resting time and while you're eating the main course? - the meat if fully covered or wrapped in foil, and especially if it can be left in the roasting dish on top of the stove, will keep hot for quite some time (depending on its size of course - a bigger piece of meat will hold its heat longer than a smaller piece).

Hope that helps. :-))

cassie24, May 13, 4:29am
Thanks Sam, i am having a roast chicken which is in a oven bag, the pudding is a Sara Lees Apple crumble pie which requires 55mins cook time, yes my oven has a fan-bake option, so do i put the pudding above or below it, the chicken is in the middle rack

cassie24, May 13, 4:31am
Pudding says to cook at 170 or 150 fan forced chicken is on at 180

245sam, May 13, 4:33am
cassie24, I would put the pudding below the chicken to avoid the crumble topping becoming too brown but check to make sure that the chicken won't drip its juices on to the pudding. :-))

245sam, May 13, 4:40am
cassie24, assuming that you're going to use fan-bake, IMO you have two choices... . .
(a) reduce the oven temperature to 160 and the chicken should be cooked at the time you originally intended it to be BUT the pudding will cook more quickly than the time as per its packaging so you'll need to keep an eye on it - is the pudding pre or partly cooked and is it still frozen or have you thawed it? ?
OR
(b) reduce the oven temperature to 150 and the chicken will take a bit longer to cook than the time you originally allowed for it to cook but your pudding will then be able to be cooked as per its packaging instructions. :-))

cassie24, May 13, 4:43am
Don't think the pudding is precooked and it is still frozen, i will fan bake at 160 and put pudding in do i put it above or below the chicken? Thanks :)

245sam, May 13, 4:47am
you're welcome - see #5 above. :-))

cassie24, Apr 26, 7:02pm
Thank you i missed that post, chicken won't drip it is in a roasting dish