This is not my favorite topic.  It brings the bad emotions I mentioned back in the child room cleaning post.  Mostly because I usually put off the chore until the burned food smell fills the house and sets off the smoke alarm. It happens because some recipe goes totally wrong and spills over on everything.  (Not really an atta-girl moment.) And I don’t bother to clean it up right away, which just lets those feelings fester.

Completely random picture that is happier than oven cleaning. Though it might relate loosely since the pie was baked in an oven.

Then I get so desperate that I buy a can of oven cleaner that has a bunch of warnings about cancer, children dying, brain damage.  That kind of stuff.  And then I hear on the news that the same oven cleaner has been recalled because it wasn’t as safe as they thought. What???? So my oven never gets cleaned until the day we rip out our kitchen, realize that our 1 year old oven wouldn’t work in the new design and we might be able to recoup some of the costs by selling it on Craigslist, except that when the prospective buyer opens the oven door, Ewwwww.

It took some time, but I had that oven sparkling like new in time for showing that evening.  And I never touched a caustic chemical.  There’s nothing like the thought of losing a bunch of money to get my feet in gear.  Before I forget, even though the chemicals aren’t harsh, I recommend wearing gloves since they are very drying.

In a filthy burned on oven, you have two things going on.  Grease and Carbon (It’s like the black stuff that forms when you catch a marshmallow on fire–love them that way.)  So to clean it up, you need to find products to address those two things.  I like dish soap to attack the grease and baking soda to work on the carbon.    I mix the two together to make a paste that looks a lot like cake frosting.

Rub it into the spots and let it set for a little while.  Then use a Scotch pad (in non-scratching variety) to work it into the yuck.  It’s best not to use water.  After awhile your Scotch pad will fill up with baking soda and you will have to rinse it out.  Be sure to squeeze out as much water as possible, since water makes the mixture less effective.  It took me awhile since my oven was so bad (I’m talking about the oven I sold, the oven in my NEW house needs cleaning desperately and if I wasn’t throwing a birthday party today, I’d be cleaning it right now.  Really…  I would… I think.)

This even works on the oven glass–like magic.  When you get all the stuff rubbed off, use a soft cloth or paper towel to buff up the rest of the baking soda.  Rinsing it out doesn’t work very well.  It’s best dried and then vacuumed out.  Then dusted away.

There are other oven cleaning theories out there, that sound slightly easier than mine.  But I have yet to try them.  The next one I want to try is here:  http://housekeeping.about.com/od/kitchen/qt/bksd_oven.htm