I am building a new house with a new kitchen (wow that's amazing!) and have
just acquired an electric oven with three elements (fan, top, bottom) and a
rotisserie. The elements can be used singly, fan + top and fan + bottom.

1) It has a fan element behind a partial wall at the back I know what this
is for, having had a fan oven before, it gives an even temperature
throughout, hopefully with no part hotter than another. So far so good.

2) A top radiant element. This gives radiant heat so that you can
rotisserie, grill (cook top-down, I believe this is called broiling in some
parts), brown the top of things etc, OK two out of two.

3) A bottom radiant element. Here I am not too sure. In the cruddy
convection oven I have now (shudder) I am constantly trying to stop the
bottom of things burning 'cause bottom heat's all you get. What style of
baking is actually assisted by bottom heat? I am not an expert pastry cook
but I am guessing that when cooking on a slide in some cases bottom heat
helps to cook the pastry by heating the slide and this keeps it crisp. Is
this the case? Does this concept apply to pizza too? What else is bottom
heat good for?


David