My old range had delayed bake and I think in 25 years I used it once or twice. I did use timed bake more often but only to make rice cakes for shrimp sizzling rice soup - the rice cakes had to bake at a low temperature for 10 hours. My new range doesn't have it - I just start them at night and turn them off in the morning. If you've never had those features before I wouldn't spend extra money on them.

Can you get an oven without it? I've had it in every oven/range I've ever had (even though they've all been very basic), and have never used it. I don't want to leave something that should be in the fridge waiting in the oven, and I like to be able to check progress to make sure things are not overcooking, or are not underdone before turning them off, which I can only do by being there.

This is the first time I have an oven with a timer and I love it!!! I wouldn't leave meat in there for hours growing bacteria waiting to be cooked. But it does work great just before the after-school-rush. I place a casserole (usually veggies and pasta) into the oven around 3pm, get my kids and go on all their activities. And by the time we get back home dinner is ready for us :-)

It also worked great on Christmas Eve. I placed a veggie side dish and potatoes to roast into the oven before heading out for Christmas Eve church service. The timer was set to start 45 minutes later so that by the time we got home the veggies were almost done and I only needed to prepare the lamb roast for our dinner.

I have it, and I have used it. Not religiously, but I have and I do appreciate the convenience. I use it in baking steps like bread or for ginger biscuits where you have to give the dough some time to rise or sit in the fridge or somewhere before baking. So, on these multi-step recipes, before I set off from the kitchen, I set the delay bake to start the heating the oven about 30 minutes or so (depending on temperature and what I'm baking) before I expect to put said item in the oven. This allows me to put off coming into the kitchen just to turn on the oven which is sort of nice because it gives you a continguous break rather than several short intermissions where you always have to be aware of what's coming next.

Oh yes, I also do like this when I know I'm going to be busy and I've decided that I want to be able to put something in the oven at x:yy time and that the oven needs to be hot by then. Nice to have when preparing for a party when I've got other things to think about too. This takes care of one more thing I have to do at a very specific time.

Nothing momentous and while I won't say that I will never have an oven without it, it is certainly a convenience that I appreciate.

Then there's that Tmio oven which cools as well... :)

I find it very useful.

I use it to have hot baked goods ready for breakfast. When I'm going to be away all day, I can put a frozen casserole in the oven in the morning and have it hot and ready for dinner. If I have a long-cooking dish, I program the stop time so that it won't get overcooked if I get distracted or called away (less than full cooking time to allow for the cool-down period). During hot weather I do as much of my baking overnight to avoid having to be in a hot kitchen (it takes a bit of experience to figure out the timing of the heated baking with the warm-up and cool-down periods).

The process of baking requires most non-custard-containing baked goods, even the centers, to get hot enough to kill off food pathogens. Likewise roasting meats to safe temperatures, and most are supposed to be better if they are room temperature before they are cooked, so there's little additional risk to leaving them in the oven for a few hours before baking.

Thanks folks,
I am not that much of a planner when I am cooking. I am surprised that many of you actually use delay bake!

I used it a lot when I would put a frozen casserole in when I left for work and had it set to be ready when we got home. That was before all the fuss about leaving food to defrost on the kitchen counter. I also use it to cook the roast during Christmas Eve Service and for other events. I wouldn't buy an oven without it.

I've hardly ever used it.

It would be most useful if I were going out/not coming home, but I'm not sure of the safety of having an oven go on while I'm not home.

My mom used to use delay bake all the time in the 60's/70's when we were kids. She'd lets meats sit in there practically all day which would begin cooking in the late afternoon. It's a wonder we're all still alive.

Hardly ever use the delayed start, but we use the timed cook all the time. It's handy when you're trying to get something else done while the food bakes, in case you get wrapped up in something else and forget about it.

Pretty sure that you're going to kill any bacteria with the heat anyway. For example, if you're supposed to cook chicken to 160 to kill all the whatever, you're just going to kill a little more of it when you cook.

I had it but became very uncomfortable leaving anything with meat, milk, cream etc in the oven even an hour - so no I ended up not using it. It only left things like baked potatoes, winter squash.

eandhl - It should be fine to leave meat and dairy in the oven for an hour provided it was wholesome to begin with and hasn't spent much time unrefrigerated before that. The general guideline is that your perishable items should spend no more that 4 hours between 41 and 135 degrees at any time during your shopping, prep, cooking, cooling and reheating process before it is consumed. (The clock does not start over at any time including after cooking or freezing).

heimert - Cooking fully will kill all (or almost all) the bacteria, but there are some bacteria, like staph, that produce toxins when they are allowed to grow and multiply. No amount of heat will get rid of these toxins. In the case of botulism, the toxins can kill you.

In the case of botulism, the toxin is produced only under anaerobic conditions (in the absence of oxygen) where the pH is neutral or alkaline. Furthermore, 10 minutes at boiling temp destroys the toxin. The main risks are from low-acid home-canned foods that haven't been boiled before using or raw foods immersed in oil (spores occurs naturally in the soil almost everywhere). It's hard to see how using delayed baking would increase this risk.

Staph produces toxins from 104-113 degrees F. (this from http://www.arrowscientific.com.au/Staphylococcus_aureus.html). So people whose kitchens get that hot could have increased risk of they let food wait for a long time before cooking. For the rest of us delayed baking is not likely to increase the risk over using the same ingredients without delayed baking. But do keep in mind that if the ingredients already contain toxin (for example, canned mushrooms have been implicated in outbreaks), you are likely to get sick no matter how you cook it.

I bet it would be really useful on Thanksgiving. We cook enormous turkeys (22+ pounds) and like to eat around 1pm; timed bake means I don't have to wake up at 6am to start the turkey.... (of course, the key is that the turkey is cold enough to make it through the night)