How to Clean an Oven: Part One

*Sorry, No pictures at 9 am! Wonderful Man took the car, with the camera in it... :(
**11 am, Found it! He brought it in for me! Pictures added.

Have you ever cleaned an oven before?

Honestly, I haven't... Yet...

We have lived in our apartment/house for over 3 years now, and I have never cleaned our oven. Even if a pie spills over or something gets charred to the bottom.  I don't think it was cleaned before we moved in...

But, I have had this nagging in the back of my mind about how, I should probably learn how to clean an oven, before we move out. Mainly, because the longer I wait the worse it will get.

My never before cleaned oven

My oven has a self cleaning cycle, but that scares me a little. I am afraid of something catching on fire and burning our place down. I know some people, have no problem with this cycle, more power to you!

Being pregnant, I am a little more cautious about what products I am using. Honestly, if I wasn't expecting I might have gone to the store and just purchased some chemical based oven cleaner.

Monday morning, I went looking for an oven cleaner. I found five different 'recipes' that were similar.

They all say to make a paste, coat the oven, and let it sit over night.

All five of them say to use vinegar and liquid soap, either dish soap or castile soap.

Two say to use borax and the other three say to use baking soda.

So, what really is the best?

Well, I wasn't about to divided my oven into 5 sections to test, so why not try a recipe with all four ingredients.

Looking at the recipes I thought I would try my own recipe of:

1 cup Baking Soda

3 TBSP Borax

1/8 cup Liquid Castile Soap

1/4 cup distilled vinegar

extra Water (if needed)

Thursday's post, did it work?

Sources:
Recipe One
Recipe Two
Recipe Three
Recipe Four
Recipe Five