That was working fine for me until the other night, we were having company over for dinner. Dinner was focaccia bread, lasagna, and chocolate cake from scratch. So the bread was in the oven baking, with time were it was as soon as it was done I needed to pop the lasagna in, and then as soon as that was done the cake. So the oven had a couple solid hours of work ahead of it. Time was going to be tight but I was pretty sure I could get it all baked in time. At least the bread and lasagna, the cake would bake while we ate dinner. Just seconds after I had this thought the olive oil that the focaccia bread bakes in boiled over (all over) and started smoking. This was of course about 10 mins before Dan was to get home from work. By the time he got home the smoke alarms were going off despite several windows being open. Needless to say plans had to change. I finished baking the bread and as soon as it was done and shut the oven off, left it open to cool, and threw a cold soaked towel on the bottom of the oven to help it cool faster. I needed it to cool down enough for me to clean it enough so I could bake the lasagna without it smoking up the house the entire time. I ran downstairs to get some oven cleaner. Thankfully I had a partial can. I ran back upstairs and the oven was cooled enough to start cleaning it. Started to spray the oven cleaner and it would not come out. Although there was still some in the can there was no air left in the can to push it out. I was at my wits end. I thought back to some "natural" homemade recipes I had read online and decided to make my own quickly and try to get it just clean enough to were the smoke alarms wouldn't be going off when cooking the lasagna. So I threw together some baking soda, water, and dish soap. Grabbed my toughest green scratch pad and dove into cleaning the stove, not expecting much. I was blown away by how well it worked. :) I was able to not only clean the olive oil mess but some much older messes in less than 10 mins. Took some elbow grease but it looked awesome and the lasagna cooked (and was done in time) without smoking the whole time. :)
So today I decided to make my little recipe again (this time measuring) and clean the oven really really well, as I did a just good enough job the first time. It worked great again! My oven is sparkling clean! I would say if your oven is super duper bad maybe use the store bough chemical can, but if it's not too bad just use this and avoid the $$ and the chemicals. :) I am pretty clean cook, so my oven wasn't horrendous. I will be using this and only this from now on out.
Shanda's Oven Cleaner~
1/2 cup baking soda
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp Dawn Dish soap
Mix together and use a very rough dry green scratch pad to apply it all over the oven. It really doesn't need to sit long if at all. Start scrubbing the spots in the oven, scrub until the spot is gone. Then wash with a wet rag and that's it. :)
Shanda
