Did you know you were supposed to clean your oven every three months?
Oops!
When was the last time you cleaned yours? Can you even remember? We sure can’t!
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A study in the UK suggested that around 71% of adults might not be cleaning their appliances regularly, and we would guess that holds true for much of the rest of the world as well.
Most ovens these days have either a self-cleaning catalytic liner designed to catch and absorb spills and burn them away, but those don’t take care of oven racks.
Other, more sophisticated stoves come with a pyrolytic cleaning function, which is just a super-hot “cleaning” temperature that you set for a few hours that melts off grime and turns it to ash.
Despite it requiring just the click of a button, many of us still just don’t bother!
But Jill Nystul (aka “Jillie” from the blog One Good Thing) has the perfect hack to make oven-cleaning easier. It just requires a dab of elbow grease.
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The best part about Jill’s advice is that it’s for the one part of the oven that often doesn’t get cleaned, even during the cleaning cycles – the oven door!
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Just imagine a world where that window is a bright and shiny view into your future dinner instead of a grungy barricade that prevents you from being able to tell if something is browning or already overcooked.
For those very good boys and girls who have given oven door cleaning a go, you likely know that it takes a lot of cleaner to bust through that grime.
Then the problem is getting it all off so that you don’t heat up those chemicals and send noxious fumes through your house (and into your baked goods!).
Jill insists that all you need to get that glass gleaming is:
- a dishwasher detergent tablet (Jill used Finish tablets)
- a cup of warm water
- cleaning gloves
- a cleaning cloth that can handle a stain or two
But first, an important note:
“Make sure you use a detergent tablet for this, not a pod. Detergent pods typically contain some amount of liquid detergent, while tablets (like the Finish Powerball tablet I used here) are made with powdered detergent.”
So how does this work?
Well, you’re basically going to use your tablet as if it were a sponge!
1. Put your gloves on!
2. Take the tablet, dip it in the warm water, and then begin to wipe the inside of your oven door in a circular motion.
3. The tablet will begin to break apart, but that’s ok.
Just use your gloved fingers to keep on rubbing the tablet into the glass.
The crumbs are also good for getting into corners!
4. You’ll need to keep at it until you’re satisfied that the grease is losing its grip on your oven door, but after that, simply wipe it all down with a cleaning cloth.
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It might not seem like a life-altering trick, but using a dishwasher pod on your oven isn’t something people would normally think of. But they’re meant to cut through grease on pots and pans – so it makes sense!
Commenters who tried the trick were stunned by the results:
“OMG! I just did this and I am stunned! My oven door has not been cleaned in a while (my self cleaning function isn’t working, and I never wanted to tackle the door myself). My burnt on mess came clean with very little effort. I was a little worried about scratches in the glass, but nope, there are none. Thank you so much for all your amazing hints,” said one.
We’re ready to try it, how about you?
And for those who get things clean but still see that stubborn grime between the panes of glass, Jill has a post about getting that grime out as well. Just click here.
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