As we know, air fryers make delicious and healthy fried food without using tons of oil. But can it bake as well?
Air fryers and convection ovens are misunderstood in terms of their cooking methods. They are two different appliances that work somehow similarly.
Airfryer does bake food, but there are some exceptions. Plus, the taste will not be the same as you get from baking items in the traditional oven. Then the size is another topic. Due to its small size, the air fryer can only bake food in small portions.
In my opinion, an air fryer is a smaller convection oven with a catchy name. It cooks food using convection baking. Unlike the deep-frying method, air fryers use only a fraction of oil for cooking food.
Traditional ovens generate heat from an element (either gas or electric). Over time, the heat gradually spreads throughout the oven. Convection ovens prevent heat with the help of a fan.
On the other hand, air fryers generate heat with hot air technology. They are significantly smaller and heat up faster than an oven. They don’t heat your kitchen as the traditional oven does.
They can distribute heat more evenly because of their compact size, which helps your food crisp up without hot spots. These are some basic differences between a convection oven and an air fryer; otherwise, they are less or more the same equipment.
Baking is completely an oven thing. While air fryers can bake foods, you can’t bake a cake or a whole dish of lasagna in an air fryer, can you? That’s what makes them distinctive. But an air fryer is more similar to a convection oven than a deep fryer.
In this blog, we’ll discuss the exact mechanism of cooking an air fryer. We’ll talk about the distinctions between baking and frying mechanisms. You’ll get all the information you need regarding the use of an air fryer.
So, let’s get to it!
What Is An Air Fryer?
An air fryer is a small countertop appliance that cooks food by circulating air around it using convection heating.
The food is held inside in a basket, and a fan rapidly moves air around it, surrounding it in the same way that food in a deep fryer is surrounded by hot oil. Finally, it works well to give food that crispy, fried texture without adding a lot of extra fat.
Air fryers use little to no oil to achieve the same effect as traditional deep frying and provide simpler, less time-consuming recipes than traditional baking.
What distinguishes air frying from baking in an oven?
Heat is generated by an element in conventional ovens (either gas or electric). While heat is slowly dispersed throughout the oven. That time is sped up in convection ovens by the use of a fan similar to the one found in an air fryer.
Air fryers, on the other hand, generate heat through rapid air technology rather than an element. This allows them to heat up much faster than an oven (and they’re also much, much smaller). They circulate heat more evenly because of their small size, crisping up your food without hot spots.
Can I Bake In An Air Fryer?
Yes, you can bake food in an air fryer. However, the taste would be a bit different from what you produce from a convection oven.
If you don’t have an oven, you may cook mouthwatering baked items using an air fryer too. However, you will need to bake in several batches in an air fryer as it doesn’t have the same capacity as a regular oven.
Fried dishes are typically prepared in air fryers without the additional oil, fat, or calories. What happens inside the air fryer is very different from frying. A heating element and a fan encourage hot air circulation inside the cooking chamber.
Hot air circulates considerably more quickly in an air fryer than in a convection oven. It allows the air to contact the full surface of the food more effectively, which gives your meal a crunchy exterior.
Cinnamon buns are one of the best things you can bake in an air fryer. Just be sure to do it properly by cutting them into smaller pieces and not baking a large number at once.
It just takes about 9 to 11 minutes to prepare perfectly baked cinnamon rolls.
Is Baking The Same As Air Frying?
No air frying as a term and mechanism is quite distinctive from baking. However, technically speaking, an air fryer similarly bakes food as an oven does. That is why we may say that baking is similar to air frying.
Talking about the size, an oven is a full-sized appliance that can handle numerous larger amounts of food. Whereas an air fryer is a countertop appliance that typically cooks one meal at a time.
An air fryer can easily prepare a single batch of chicken wings, zucchini fries, or other fried favorites. It can also be used for convection baking in your kitchen.
However, in terms of volume, an air fryer cannot take the place of a regular oven.
You should still have a full-sized oven in your kitchen if you routinely prepare multiple meals at once or in greater quantities.
What Are The Guidelines For Baking Food In An Air Fryer?
You need to remember a few rules when it comes to baking with an air fryer. Most air fryers’ models perform the same function with minor variations in time and temperature.
A general rule of thumb for air fryer baking is to lower the temperature by 25°F. You can bake at 20 to 25% less temperature and time specified in a regular baking recipe.
Two procedures are necessary when making baked items in an air fryer:
- An air fryer quickly circulates heated air throughout the cooking cavity to give food a balanced heat.
- A perforated basket is used to help expose all of your food to air.
Don’t overload the basket with dozen of cookies. The air fryer’s main job is to cook yummy fried food that is healthy to eat. It’s better to use it only to prepare fried food instead of baking cakes and bagels.
What Should You Avoid Baking in an Air Fryer?
We should avoid baking small baked goods and anything with cheese in an air fryer.
Air fryers are not the best choice for baking small foods like choux pastry (cream puffs), madeleines, or mini-sized cupcakes. It is even advised to resize regular-sized baked goods to fit in an air fryer.
You’ll need to bake them in numerous batches because each item is so small and needs to be prepared separately with enough space between them. This runs the danger of cooking the remaining batter too long.
Any batter, even choux pastry dough, may lose some of its rising ability if left out for an extended period. By the time you bake your last few batches, the action of leavening chemicals like baking powder and baking soda may have greatly diminished.
This also holds for small cakes, which need meringues for volume. If the mixture is not cooked immediately, the beaten egg whites will deflate over time.
If you don’t want to deal with a mess afterward, I advise against using your air fryer for baking something with cheese as a topping. When the cheese comes into contact with the hot air fryer surface, it will melt and make a mess difficult to clean up.
However, as long as the cheese is covered, you can still try baking with it (e.g., for muffin filling).
Thus, you can’t bake everything in an air fryer; there are many prerequisites for baking food in an air fryer.
How Are Air Fryers Operated?
A heating system and a fan are located in the top portion of an air fryer. After turning your air fryer on, hot air flows down and around the food, you have placed in the basket. The meal has a crisp texture akin to deep-frying because of the rapid circulation.
To use an air fryer, follow the following steps:
First of all, put your food in the basket. The basket’s capacity can range from 2 to 10 quarts, depending on the size of your air fryer. You usually add 1 or 2 teaspoons of oil to make the dish lovely and crispy.
To have a smooth cleanup afterward, use foil in an air fryer if you’re pressed for time.
In the second step, determine the time:
Depending on your item, air fryer cooking durations and temperatures might range from 5 to 25 minutes at 350° to 400°F.
After that, let the food cook.
To ensure even crisping, you may occasionally need to flip or turn the item midway through cooking. You should always clean your air fryer after completion of the cooking process.
A List Of Best Air Fryers Along With Prices
| Air Fryers | Price |
| Instant Vortex 6-quart Air Fryer | $84 |
| Ninja 4-quart Air Fryer | $95 |
| GoWISE USA 5.8-Quarts 8-in-1 Electric Air Fryer XL | $73 |
| Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer | $300 |
| Dash Compact Air Fryer | $50 |
Can We Make Cookies In An Air Fryer?
As previously said, heated air circulates more quickly in an air fryer. Therefore, baking a small batch of cookies can be completed in as little as 5 minutes! To keep the cookies from sticking, make sure to grease the air fryer basket with butter or cooking spray.
Additionally, parchment paper or foil might be used to line the base. However, you can only bake 2-3 cookies simultaneously for perfect results.
The process of baking cookies in an air fryer is very similar to that of baking them in an oven. You need to make minor alterations to the temperature and baking time, which we will discuss later in the article.
Avoid any toppings that can melt because they could burn. Cookie batter is among the easiest baked items you can create, despite being very dense.
Baking items in an air fryer will give them slightly crisp tops since the surface of such batters will come into close contact with the heating source. The centers, however, will continue to be light and fluffy, like those from an oven. Keeping these slight variations in mind, we can easily bake cookies in an air fryer.
Conclusion
To conclude, I’d like to say that;
- Air fryers are almost similar to convection ovens in terms of cooking food. It can bake cookies, cupcakes, cinnamon rolls, and many other food items but the taste and texture differ from the foods baked in an oven.
- I think air fryer is just a catchy name for a convection oven because they both make food with no oil and have better consistency than deep-fried items.
- A fan is added to an oven’s interior during convection baking, allowing hot air to be blasted over and onto the food. On the other hand, an air fryer can concentrate a large amount of heat onto a relatively tiny frying area.
- So, in case we want to answer why air fryers fry or bake food, the answer would be they bake food but not exactly like our toasters and ovens. There are multiple differences between the mechanisms of cooking.