With Christmas around the corner, your oven will be working overtime over the next few weeks. And while there’s never been a better time to clean it, it turns out that we’ve all been missing a crucial spot when cleaning our ovens - making it look dirty, even when it’s not. This visible grime also means you’ll have to open the oven door more frequently, spoiling your yorkies and energy bills in the process.
As one of the kitchen appliances to deep-clean before Christmas, your oven will thank you for some TLC this festive season. Cleaning the racks, runners, seals, and the main oven space will make sure it’s equipped to deal with your Christmas dinner and your Boxing Day curry, and ensure it doesn’t give your mother-in-law any ammunition to criticise your cleaning skills.
But when was the last time you cleaned inside your oven door? No, I’m not talking about the glass of the oven door; I’m talking about the space between the glass panels on the oven door. And while this small gap may seem insignificant (and perhaps even completely out of reach), it can be a hidden dirt trap that’ll make the whole appliance look filthy if you don’t clean it regularly. This is how to do it.
Why you should clean between the gap of an oven door
Most modern ovens generally have two (and sometimes three) panes of glass on an oven door. This not only helps to keep the heat inside the oven, but also keeps the outside pane as cool as possible for safety.
This creates an air gap that should, ideally, stay relatively clean. But when you regularly cook saucy or oily meals that splatter, it’s easy for this grime and debris to make its way into that air gap. This is echoed by Gwil Snook, oven expert at AO.com, who says, ‘Cleaning inside the oven door is something people often forget about, but it’s one of the areas where grease and steam build up fastest.’
With this dirt and grime between the panes, your oven will continue to look dirty even when you clean the oven door inside and out - which is why it’s important to add an extra step to your oven cleaning routine so you can get between the panes and let them sparkle. And experts say that now, before Christmas, is the ideal time to do it.
Kelly Moore from Cleaning with Meaning says, ‘A light cleaning before festivities provides a fresh start and helps your oven heat to the right temperatures more quickly and evenly. It also minimises the risk of unexpected smells from drifting into your Christmas dinner, which is always comforting when you're balancing timings, side dishes, and children asking when they can open their next present.
How to clean the gap between an oven door
It’s important to note that not all ovens are created equally, so it may be that you can’t clean in between the gaps of an oven door. Gwil says, ‘It’s worth checking your manual and checking if the glass is removable.’
That’s because, unless you have a tool like this, MR.SIGA Flexible Microfiber Long Duster for Gap Cleaning (£19.99 at Amazon) to hand to reach in between the gap yourself, you generally need to remove the door and glass from your oven to clean this area. This is typically a matter of undoing a few screws or pressing a release button, but it can seem daunting.
However, it’s seriously worth it, and it’s a lot easier than you’d think. And once you’ve done it once, you’ll quickly incorporate this step into your regular oven cleaning routine. What’s more, you should still be able to clean both panes even when only one is removed, using the same method as you would for the rest of the oven.
Laura Harnett, founder of plastic-free cleaning brand, Seep, is all about cleaning an oven without chemicals, and she advises, ‘Fill a glass or ceramic bowl with boiling water and the juice of two lemons. Leave this to infuse for an hour to loosen the grease and grime inside the oven.’
‘Next, mix a cup of baking soda and a few tablespoons of water to create a paste thick enough to spread inside the oven without running off. Add more baking soda if needed to get the consistency right. Leave the paste overnight and scrub off the next morning,’ she adds.
Alternatively, you could bypass any cleaning products completely and clean an oven with a steam cleaner, as the high pressure and temperature of the steam break down the dirt and grime in seconds - especially if you opt for one of the best steam cleaners that comes with multiple tools and attachments. Whatever you do, just make sure that you clean the gap!
Oven cleaning essentials
I swear by using the Scrub Daddy Power Paste in my home, and it's the ultimate all-purpose cleaner. It's especially handy when cleaning an oven, as it comes with the paste and the sponge to get the job done quickly.
Crowned the 'best overall' in our steam cleaner guide, this model is the ultimate all-rounder. It'll steam clean your floors (even your carpets) in full-size mode, but converts into a handheld for oven cleaning.
A crevice cleaning brush like this is ideal for small nooks and crannies like the gap between an oven door. And you can also use it for other hard-to-reach areas in the home.
When cleaning an oven - especially the glass - you want to use something slightly abrasive but not too abrasive. These eco sponges are perfect for the job, and they have the added bonus of being compostable.
If you have particularly stubborn marks and stains on your oven, it's well worth using a scraper like this one. It's designed to be gentle-but-effective, without scratching the glass.
If you want to clean an oven as naturally and as effectively as possible, bicarb is a no-brainer. It's naturally abrasive (but still gentle) and is ideal for neutralising odours at the same time.
Once you've cleaned your oven (and the gap in between the glass) for Christmas, it's well worth using the hack to clean underneath and behind it, too.
