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Saturday 4 April 2009

When the Oven light goes off...

Today, we had some friends of ours visiting from Australia - or is it England, or maybe even the USA...

You see, the guy is from Malaysia but working in Australia. His wife is from USA and living in Australia with him. However, they are both back in Malaysia for a visit en route to London as he is going to work there now. So complicated.

I had decided to make some Brownies for tea and whipped up the batter, poured it into the pan and was about to put it into the oven when I noticed that the oven light wasn't on. I have the kind of oven where the light stays on as soon as the oven is set to any temperature. I felt the door of the oven and it was warm but somehow didn't feel as warm as it should

Aaarrghhh!! I quickly ran to the fuse box to check the ELCB and the fuse. All were okay. There was electrical supply as the television was working. I ran back to the kitchen and swapped power sockets and tried the oven again but the light still didn't turn on. I started to have a little bit of an anxiety attack - not so much over the possibility that I might not be able to serve brownies but more because I feared that I would have to replace my oven, and I have gotten rather attached to this oven that I have owned for more than 10 years.

Then a light clicked on inside of my head. My Engineering training took over and I quickly realised that I should troubleshoot instead of just assuming the oven was on the blink.

I opened the oven door and looked at the element. Then I turned to dial to the rotisserie setting and I heard the rumbling noise of the rotisserie motor turning. I turned the dial to the grill setting and wathced as the element turned red. Yes! The oven was still working. It was the blasted light that had died on me.

I quickly shoved the cake pan in and let it bake. I then grabbed a torchlight and used it to peer into the oven to check on the cake. This is where I realised how valuable a light INSIDE the oven is!

Anyway, the brownies baked up really well, everyone enjoyed them and when the oven cooled, I unscrewed the light bulb and found that it had in fact fused.

Now I just have to go find a place that sells replacement oven bulbs that are rated to withstand temperatures of 300C. Valuable lesson learnt too. Always keep a cool head and remember that just because the light goes off, that doesnt mean that the whole machine has stopped working...

10 comments:

David T. Macknet said...

Hah! Glad the whole thing isn't broken!

Ivy said...

All's well that ends well. Glad that it was only the lamp.

luckysanjana said...

my mom had an oven which she never baked in ........then she gave it to my sister.....and while she had it i baked a cake twice in it......lol soonafter she decided to relegate the oven to the attic......and after years of just hoarding it she most unwillingly gave it to me...........lol......and guess what i dont know why i wanted teh blessed thing.........its not like i baked forever i n it........just 2 cakes..............umm anyways when she gave it to me the glass had broken and the light like you said was not working so i took it for repairs.........the guy said look the light thing is simple enuf to fix but go find the glass first.............then i went hunting for that glass......since the model was too old the company did not exist anymore......then the glass cutters would not make one pc of heat proof glass........then one day i had gone for an exhibition and guess what they had these glass lids on their cookware and i asked them if the glass was heatproof and they said yes......so well brought a lid that kind of sat perfectly on the oven..........i still have to get the electrics fixed and then bake that awesome cake someday...................thanks fo your post i will get it done soon.........i had almost forgotten about it............

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Problem solving is such a winner. A cool head helps too.

Alicia Foodycat said...

Our oven stops working if you hit one of the buttons on the front - but we can never remember which one and end up just smashing buttons with a fist until we get the right combination.

kat said...

I'm looking for a bulb for my oven too. So far no success - all I've found are bulbs for fridges! Do let me know when you find your bulb ya? For the time being, I make do with a timer, a clean oven door and sense of smell! If there's no burning smell, it's fine!! LOL

Chefspiration said...

Yikes! Glad the brownies turned out either way :)

~nm said...

had a good laugh reading this :)

Once I thought my MW has conked off. Finally after taking it to the shop I figured its the plug that was the pain.

pixen said...

I frequent had this problems when I'm back in M'sia :-(. The worst happenings were before and during heavy rain. Luckily, I have 3-phase supply and my kitchen is not affected except the suction hob's light. Most of times I 'blew off' the lights of the staircase and dining area... 2-3 times in a row!

Either I'm static or it's the damp atmosphere that caused this irritable problems :-|

Aparna Balasubramanian said...

Well, all's well that "brownies" well! :D