Tried and Tested: Does the AEG Mastery SenseCook Oven really make cooking easier and food tastier?

This year’s been a crazy one and you’ll probably have found yourself spending more time cooking than ever before. I know I have.

If like us, you have an oven that hasn’t quite met your needs or is literally on its last legs, then the AEG Mastery BPE842720M Built In Electric Single Oven has some amazing features to look out for. Especially, if you to want to explore more when it comes to cooking for your friends and family. To be honest, I had never considered AEG before, but having used their AEG Mastery oven for nearly two weeks, I’ve been blown away by the cooking experience it’s had to offer so far. Cooking aside, it looks great and is really well designed, so you can’t really go wrong when using it. So much so, I’ll seriously be looking at other AEG products in the future.

Having moved into our thatched cottage by the sea a year ago, we not only inherited a dated 80’s kitchen (we’ve given the units a quick makeover until we can rip them out), but an old wall oven too. It was pretty much as antiquated as the units that housed it. I had serious problems navigating the oven temperature, which either burnt things to a crisp or was undercooked! Oh, and did I mention it was horrendous to clean?

As someone who loves to cook and is in the process of encouraging my teenager to explore and become interested in cooking, our old oven failed miserably at providing either of us with the joy of cooking when it came to using it.

I also found that due to my having a touch of tinnitus and often struggling to hear with background noise, the old wall oven made it very difficult to hold conversations in our kitchen. It actually got to the point where I avoided using the oven at all, much to the disappointment of the family, as their favourite roast dinners became a distant memory.

The AEG Mastery oven appealed on so many levels, and not only because of its good looks. I’m prone to looking for advanced technologies to assist my day-to-day, especially when it comes to running a home and freeing up spare time. Now we live by the sea, it’s lovely to be able to explore and be more involved in our little village community. I’ve not had much luck with ovens in the past, so I’ve mostly avoided cooking in it as a result. I hoped that this oven would rekindle my love for it.

As our old oven was a complete nightmare to clean, the Pyrolytic Cleaning function with the additional assurance of safety appealed to my environmentally friendly mindset. Cleaning without the use of chemicals or the expense of having to get an oven cleaning company out would tick both the environment and saving money boxes.

I’ve avoided cooking a joint of beef rare before as I’ve been scared that I would undercook it and make my family/guests ill. Using the SenseCook function not only provided me with peace of mind but also ensured the meat was cooked perfectly without having to constantly check on it.

This was the first time I had ever used the SenseCook which uses a sensor probe. I have to say the process was a simple and fascinating one. When you plug in the sensor, the display automatically shows the sensor has been activated. Then, just turn the dial to highlight the menu settings and click to bring up the assisted cooking feature to navigate the menu options. Once you’ve selected your chosen way of cooking your meat, you can then choose how you’d like it cooked. In this case rare, medium, or well done.

The whole process of programming from start to finish takes less a minute. I have to say I was impressed with the whole process and not going and checking the oven to make sure the beef joint was cooking ok took a little getting used to.

What’s also great is you have a visual guide to the oven temperature as the meat is cooked. The red line increases along the marker as the oven cooks your meat to your set preference. With this visual cooking guide, you can gauge when to add additional foods such as potatoes and vegetables. For me personally, I would have liked to have seen an actual time rather than the red line increasing so I could tell when the meat would be finished.

Once the meat was cooked, the oven will automatically switch off - a great feature if you’re busy and stray away from the kitchen. With my old oven, if I missed the timer, it would continue to cook and I’d find food cremated. At least now, I’ll know this brilliant oven will turn itself off.

You then take out the Sensor probe (using oven gloves as it will be hot). Thankfully, when it came to serving the meat, it was delicious! Even the hubs and teen who weren’t too sure about eating rare beef enjoyed the taste and said how tender it was. They both said they prefer their beef cooked more, but that’s not a problem in this oven either.

My personal preference for beef is medium. I was really chuffed to be able to set the oven using the pre-sets just like before. We even managed to have a midweek roast using this function which only took half an hour. Something I’ve never considered before due to the hassle of our old oven.

The other great feature of this AEG Mastery Oven is the incredibly fast heat up time, which is activated as soon as you press start. It beeps to let you know the oven has reached the desired temperature and continues to cook your food to perfection. This was my personal favourite thing about cooking with SenseCook. The beef was cooked to perfection and melted in the mouth. It was so tender. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever achieved cooking roast beef medium before with any other oven, in the 30 years I’ve been cooking.

Both the teenager and my husband prefer their beef well done, which in past experiences has led to the meat tasting rather dry and tough. So, I was apprehensive how it would turn out.

I, or should I say this amazing oven, managed to produce a roast that wasn’t only well done but also tasted totally delicious. It was flavoursome and not at all dry. It went down a real treat and the leftover beef was devoured in sandwiches the next day.

Having used our oven for nearly two weeks, a cleaning reminder popped up on the oven screen which was a nice surprise. I have to hold my hands up to being a messy cook, something my husband still finds slightly annoying even after all these years.

The quick programme is set at 59 minutes and I did wonder if it would actually clean the oven in this time. I liked that the door remained locked during and even after the programme had finished, until the oven had cooled down. It’s a great safety feature; particularly if others in your household attempt to use the oven during or after the programme has finished as it will prevent unnecessary accidents. There’s also the visual guide on the oven’s menu screen to let you and others know whether it’s cleaning or cooling, another great feature of this fab oven.

Unlike during cooking programmes, when you don’t really hear the fan oven working, you will during the pyrolytic cleaning programme.

Considering I chose the quick option, I was shocked at how the oven came up so clean afterwards. Once the door lock was released, it was just a case of using a damp cloth to wipe away the ash (created from the intense heat). The whole oven, including the glass door was sparkling. In the past, I’ve spent many an hour trying to scrub previously owned ovens and I have never achieved the same results. There’s always been some residue left whether its the glass door, or the base of the oven. The AEG Mastery cleaned so well on this low setting, that I will probably take heed of the Oven Cleaning Reminder that appears on the oven’s clear menu rather than leave it too long and have to use a higher setting.

Not only do you have the choice of cleaning this oven without chemicals or the hassle of getting a specialist in, you’ve different options depending on how much food debris has built up in your oven. Particularly when you can’t clean your oven as regularly as you’d like and so leave it longer than you ordinarily would.

The AEG Mastery oven has become my new best friend in the kitchen. It’s like having a second pair of hands, which as someone who does 99.9% of the cooking is a relief! It’s not only taken the guesswork out of cooking a range of different foods, it has freed up valuable time to be able to get on with other tasks as a busy family household. No more unnecessary peeks at the oven to make sure the food isn’t being ruined and means that I have peace of mind too. The AEG Mastery oven has definitely put the fun back into oven cooking since we’ve moved into our cottage.

As much as I love advanced technology with gadgets in the kitchen, they can sometimes take time to get used to. And sometimes, they’re so complex you give up trying to work them out. The AEG Mastery is so simple to operate that it’s had the opposite effect. The intuitive touchscreen/dial menu has encouraged me to explore more ways of oven cooking than I’ve ever done before.

Some of the additional functions such as the ‘Reminder’ are absolutely brilliant. For someone like me who easily gets distracted whilst cooking, this is a total lifesaver when it comes to cooking different types of food with different settings. It’s easy for me to forget when to add additional food, such as potatoes for roasting. Using the Reminder function was a breeze. Just tap the bell symbol on the intuitive touch screen and set a time that you want to add in any additional food. Of course, it can also be used for other means of cooking or even just to remind you that you need to go and change into your glad rags if you’ve got guests for dinner.

There’s so much more to explore with this amazing AEG Mastery Oven. I’ve cooked everything, from sausages to a quick cassoulet, and each time I have been impressed with not only the oven’s functionality but also how tasty the food has been. Meat has definitely been tender and juicy, whereas before it would be very hit and miss. Even my family have noticed a huge difference. It’s made cooking in our kitchen enjoyable. So much so, I am actually look forward to the experience rather than the dread of how the food would taste or indeed cook in our old oven.

I’m totally smitten with all the programmes too. There’s still so much to explore, from cooking pizza (which has different settings for frozen and chilled) to dough proofing. And if like us, you’ve decided to grow your own during lockdown, there’s even a programme to preserve your fruits. There’s literally a programme for every requirement – even plate warming.

Even the husband has been blown away with this amazing oven. So much so, he’s planning to have a go at using it to cook us a family meal. Something he hasn’t done since we moved into our cottage a year ago. I’m also planning on adding an additional AEG Mastery oven to our kitchen when we get round to replacing the units.

This product was gifted free of charge in exchange for @theinterioreditor's honest opinion.

Images provided by @theinterioreditor