Are you searching for a new cooker but not sure which type to go for? The cooker you choose will depend on the previous cooker you have used and, of course, your personal preference when it comes to cooking. This blog highlight’s the pros and cons of gas and electric cookers, to inform you of which cooker is suitable for your needs. While both of these style cookers do a great job, they both have advantages and disadvantages.
Which is cheaper to run?
Both gas and electric cookers cost money to run, but they do differ greatly in how much they cost. If you use an electric cooker, you will use less energy but as electricity costs are more than gas per unit, you may end up paying slightly more for an electric cooker.
If you were to use your cooker for around five-hours per week, tests have shown an electric cooker will cost you on average £40 per week while a gas cooker will cost around £17 per week. Not to mention, gas cookers tend to retail cheaper also. While we understand, it’s not always about how much it will cost you, this will influence which cooker you purchase.
Advantages and Disadvantages; Which cooker is best?
Gas Cooker
Advantages
- Gas cookers are great for simmering food as they offer quick and easy-to-control heat temperatures. Overall, the cooker hobs provide even heat for the base of your pan. Therefore, you spend less time preparing your dinner to get it cooked properly.
- They are also cheaper to run, compared to electric cookers. As a result, you’re going to save more money if you cook with a gas cooker.
Disadvantages
- Gas hobs are a lot slower than electric hobs, meaning they take longer to warm larger volumes of food. If you’re planning on cooking large meals each night on your gas hob, we recommend you safe yourself some time and go for an electric cooker.
- Gas hobs can sometimes be harder to clean as they have raised burners and pan supports. Trying to clean them does become slightly trickier and time-consuming. As gas hobs have raised burners and pan supports they are more susceptible to collecting dust and excess food from spillages.
- A gas cooker has less even heat distribution in the ‘oven’ compartment compared to electric ovens, making it harder for the heat to circulate around the cavity of the oven. This means the heat will stay at the top of the oven, rather than the bottom. While this is seen as a disadvantage for some, others utilise this element as they cook different foods, with different cooking instructions, at the same time!
- Conclusively, installation of a gas cooker can also be a tricky one and you are required to have a qualified professional to install your appliance – this does cost, so bare this in mind if you are thinking of purchasing a gas cooker.
Electric Cooker
While there is no definite answer to which cooker is best, as experts, Cooker Spare Parts can advise you of the advantages and disadvantages of each cooker, to make sure you’re buying the most suitable cooker for your home and your requirements!
Electric cookers have a few more advantages than they do disadvantages and this is why;
- Electric cookers evenly distribute its heat, this is because they have fans, which help circulate hot air around the cavity. This means your food will tend to cook evenly and will take less time (this is a great benefit if you are cooking large meals or are looking to cook a meal quickly).
- Electric ovens also tend to have different heating elements that you can utilise to your advantage. With this element, you can cook multiple meals at the same time. For example, using your grill and fan to cook different meals (perfect for families with children or those with different food preferences).
- If you tend to cook a lot, have a large family or, are a messy cook (this is not a bad thing), then an electric oven would be the cooker we would recommend. Electric cookers are much easier to clean and take less time to clean – so, if you’re in a rush or cooking a lot, it saves you a lot of time and stress when it comes to the deep clean.
- If you purchase an electric cooker that has ‘induction cooking’ you can speed up cooking times; induction cookers heat up faster which is great if you’re in a rush and are looking to whip up a quick meal.
- Finally, it has been proven that electric cookers are better at grilling food to that of gas cookers. So, if you like to grill your food then we’d recommend an electric cooker.
Disadvantages
- Electric cookers cost fractionally more, so your energy bills will be slightly higher if you opt for this cooker style.
- Electric cooker hobs tend to take longer to cool down as they retain heat after they have been switched off – be careful if you have little ones, as they can be very hot to touch after they have been switched off!
Cooker Spare Parts can inform you of the types of cookers available and how they can work for you. However, it really depends on your cooking preferences as to which cooker is best! Both gas and electric cookers do a great job at cooking but they do have different functions so, make sure before buying, you are aware of their pros and their cons.
If you do have any questions about which cooker is best, don’t hesitate to give our friendly advice team a call or email; you can find their contact details here. Additionally, at Cooker Spare Parts we stock a range of gas and electric cooker replacement parts so at any time you find your cooker in need of fixing, we can help too!
We all love a full English breakfast - nothing gets you going first thing in the morning quite like a thousand calories of fat, grease, and meat (washed down, naturally, with a big cup of ultra-sugary tea). It's a British tradition, though everyone has their own unique idea of what should be included in a 'proper' fry-up: some people swear by hash browns, some people won't touch a cooked breakfast that doesn't include black pudding, and some people (presumably including the heathen who took the photo above) even think that tomatoes have their place on the big greasy plate.
But we're not here today to discuss minor 'toast or fried bread?' variations on the classic British fry-up. We're here to really shake things up - if you're bored of the same old sausages and beans, here are three tantalising twists for you to add to your next cooked breakfast:
1. Avocado Fried Egg
Want to pretend that your fry-up is vaguely healthy? We hear that avocados are very
en vogue right now, so why not use those fashionable green fellas to create a nutritious and eye-catching border for your fried egg? We got this idea (and, indeed, the photograph above) from
Treehugger.com - details on how to pull it off can be found there.
2. Beans & Bacon (Together at Last!)
Baked beans have never been the belle of the breakfast ball - perhaps due to their 'musical' reputation, many people opt to leave them out altogether so as to make room for more of the stuff they really like. Still, we love a nice helping of baked beans here at
Cooker Spare Parts, and we think we've found a way to change the minds of even the most ardent bean-bashers: mixing them with bacon.
Bacon, of course, is the undisputed king of the cooked breakfast, and while standard fry-up protocol leans toward simply serving the rashers as they are, we see no reason why they shouldn't be cut up and mixed in with the beans to make them more appealing.
This BBC Good Food recipe recommends using cannellini beans instead of the usual Heinz fare, so if you
do choose to give this a go, your cooked breakfast will likely be the poshest in Britain that morning.
3. Grated Cheese
Melted cheese tastes good no matter what it's on top of, so don't be afraid to grab a grater and go to town on your full English breakfast while it's still piping hot. The mushrooms and baked beans should be your primary targets, as well as the egg if you're having it scrambled instead of fried.
Here in Britain, we all
love a slice of cake not and again, so to brighten up your Friday, we thought
we would share some lovely pictures of cake with you.
*
We start with the delicious
coffee and walnut cake, and the recipe comes from BBC
Good Food and it is hard to see why anyone would not like this. This cake
is the perfect partner for your mid-morning (or mid-afternoon) cup of coffee!
The creamy filling complements the coffee perfectly. All in all, this cake is a winner in our eyes!
*
Next up is the
fantastic Vanilla Cheesecake from Jamie
Oliver. We can always rely on the main man himself to provide us with some
delicious recipes, and this is a particularly easy recipe. Using classic
digestive biscuits as a base and vanilla extract, this cheesecake is an
American classic that we Brits love to have a slice of now and again! Thanks
for brightening our Friday, Jamie!
*
Finally, we have a mouth-watering
Chocolate cake from Mary Berry,
the queen of baking! This chocolate gateau has four layers of chocolatey
goodness with a truffle filling, topped off with chocolate icing! We’re all
thinking the same thing, how much we want a slice of that cake now, but we’ll
have to make do with the picture!
We hope our top 3
favourite cakes have brightened up your Friday morning, and don’t make you too
hungry! Now where did we leave that coffee and walnut cake….
What do you think are the 4 most essential components to a good old British coked breakfast? We've taken a vote and the following 4 classics came out on top:
You're Bacon Me Crazy
Bacon! What else could possibly come first other than this stunning ode-to-pig? Bacon has always been a favourite, but recently it has enjoyed an even bigger boost thanks to the internet and a new wave of cured-pork appreciation. Whether in a sandwich or as part of a fry-up, bacon is the top British breakfast staple.
Eggsellent Idea
If there is no smoke without fire, there is no bacon without eggs! Our next staple just had to be the versatile little number that is the egg; whether it's fried, scrambled, poached, boiled, coddled, or made into an omelette, eggs are delicious in all their forms - and with the addition of some bread a handful of meals can be prepared.
Nothing Silly About These Sausages
This next one was slightly trickier but sausages came out as an overall winner! We all like a bit of meat in the morning, and after bacon sausages are definitely the next favourite of the breakfast meats. Again, sausages can be a welcome addition to a fried breakfast, or just as sublime wrapped in bread for a sumptuous sausage sandwich.
A Toast to Toast
Our next favourite was also tricky as beans, tomatoes and mushrooms were all mentioned, but in the end we went for toast - bread's best contribution to the first meal of the day. We went for toast because it makes a beautiful bed for all of the above, and with the inclusion of some butter, it makes a warm, hearty breakfast snack on its own - mmm.
Feeling a little blue? We don't blame you - not only is it Monday, it's the first day of September, which means that summer is pretty much over. How depressing can one day get?
Don't panic, though - here are some pictures of delicious-looking cakes that will brighten up your Blue Monday!
These cute Pink Floyd-themed cupcakes were tweeted earlier today by Floyd mega-fan Stephen Paul Smith. The Dark Side of the Moon cakes look particularly appealing!
These cupcakes are iced to look like white terriers! How cute! Credit to Sophie Pickering, who tweeted this photo yesterday.
Well, we hope that's cheered you up a bit! If you like looking at pictures of delicious food, why not follow us on Twitter? Our feed is full of photos like this!
