No fan, regular fan, big fan. That’s it. An air fryer is just a convection oven with an extra powerful fan. Some of the tabletop versions are literally rebranded convection ovens.
Conduction is the basic way an oven heats food. Something (usually a gas flame or electric heating element) heats up the air. The heat then conducts from the air to the food.
Convection means moving the air around the oven with a fan. If the air is stagnant, it can get (relatively) cool and moist around the cold, wet food you just put in the oven to bake. The fan circulates the air so it’s always being replaced by hot, dry air. When using the convection setting, food cooks faster and as if at a higher temperature and comes out drier/crispier, which depending on what you’re going for could be good or bad.
A countertop air fryer is just a small convection oven. It forces hot air over the food with a fan. Since air frying got popular, some convection ovens have rebranded that function as air frying. There are some subtle differences between cooking something in a countertop air fryer and cooking it in a convection oven, but they are basically the same.
Convection and air fry are basically the same thing. A fan or multiple fans are moving the hot air around your oven to make things cook faster, become more crispy, or other culinary benefits that the manufacturer may brag about in a commercial. Air fry tends to imply a more extreme version of convection (i.e. more or stronger fans) but it’s not really a defined thing.
Conduction vs. induction is a different thing entirely and related to the stovetop. Conduction is the regular, classic burners like open flames or electric burners that get hot and transfer heat onto the bottom of a pot. Induction is a newish approach that passes energy straight into the pot itself to make it hot. It’s sort of like building the electric burner right into the bottom of the pot so all the stovetop is doing is managing how much electric is being passed into it.
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No fan, regular fan, big fan. That’s it. An air fryer is just a convection oven with an extra powerful fan. Some of the tabletop versions are literally rebranded convection ovens.
Conduction is the basic way an oven heats food. Something (usually a gas flame or electric heating element) heats up the air. The heat then conducts from the air to the food.
Convection means moving the air around the oven with a fan. If the air is stagnant, it can get (relatively) cool and moist around the cold, wet food you just put in the oven to bake. The fan circulates the air so it’s always being replaced by hot, dry air. When using the convection setting, food cooks faster and as if at a higher temperature and comes out drier/crispier, which depending on what you’re going for could be good or bad.
A countertop air fryer is just a small convection oven. It forces hot air over the food with a fan. Since air frying got popular, some convection ovens have rebranded that function as air frying. There are some subtle differences between cooking something in a countertop air fryer and cooking it in a convection oven, but they are basically the same.
Convection and air fry are basically the same thing. A fan or multiple fans are moving the hot air around your oven to make things cook faster, become more crispy, or other culinary benefits that the manufacturer may brag about in a commercial. Air fry tends to imply a more extreme version of convection (i.e. more or stronger fans) but it’s not really a defined thing.
Conduction vs. induction is a different thing entirely and related to the stovetop. Conduction is the regular, classic burners like open flames or electric burners that get hot and transfer heat onto the bottom of a pot. Induction is a newish approach that passes energy straight into the pot itself to make it hot. It’s sort of like building the electric burner right into the bottom of the pot so all the stovetop is doing is managing how much electric is being passed into it.
While we are at it; what is the difference between Bake and Roast?