REVIEW Belling Cookcentre Cooker
I was delighted to receive and review this Belling Cookcentre Dual Fuel Cooker. It's 100 cm long and comes in stainless steel and black which looks incredibly modern in our inherited old fashioned looking kitchen!
It has two ovens, the top right is fan assisted which is so helpful when you layer up lots of trays to cook at the same time. No more rotating pans or moving them up and down to aid their cooking time (our previous oven wasn't fan assisted.) I love the large glass window, I'm someone who needs to see what's happening, I couldn't bare a windowless oven! And I love how the door opens sideways which I've found makes it easier to get things in and out.
Beneath is a storage compartment, handy for the baking trays although I had hoped it would be a proving drawer (my proving drawer desires usually fade when GBBO ends though). Top left there is a lovely separate grill, which again means you can be cooking several things simultaneously by different means to hopefully ensure you end up serving everything piping hot. Bottom left is the second oven, a conventional electric oven (no fan) but I've read that for baking this type of oven works even better, which means if you are doing a big family dinner, Christmas or Easter for example you can even have the cake cooking whilst dinner is on the go. This oven also opens sideways.
The timer and clock are super easy to set and use, it's completely self explanatory and the alarm is nice and loud, my old oven had lost the will to live and was so quiet I often missed it.
On top is the 7 burner gas hob. I've yet to use more than two at a time but I can imagine that again this feature will be super handy when you are multi cooking. There's even a dedicated wok burner if you are so inclined, although I tend to use that ring the most as it's in the centre and away from the edges and small hands.
The cooker is A/A energy rated which I'm really pleased about as I cook so much for home and for work so energy efficiency is really important to me. I can see the stainless steel being a little bit of a faff to keep finger print free but it does look incredible when it's all shiny and clean.
I'm genuinely delighted with this Belling cooker. I've also made a video which you can watch here.