Electric oven

Claim 1

An electric oven comprising a compartment for heating frozen convenience food packaged in an aluminum pan, said compartment having a top wall, a bottom wall, two sidewalls, a backwall and an open front end in which each of said walls is backed with insulation, a plate disposed on said bottom wall for supporting said packaged food, said plate having a thermal conductivity of about 0.004 Cal./cm.2/sec./* C., approximately equivalent to that of the food, and having a thickness of about one-fourth inch, a door for closing the open front end of said compartment, said door being hollow and provided with insulation, an electric heating element at said top wall of said compartment for directing infrared rays downwardly upon said packaged food, said top heating element being adapted to deliver heat energy in a wave length ranging from about 3 to 10 microns in order to allow some of the heat to be absorbed by the food in the pan while the remainder of the heat produces a required ambient condition within the compartment, electric control means for pulsing input wattage to said top heating element, an electric heating element at said bottom wall of said compartment for conducting heat upwardly through said plate into said packaged food, said bottom heating element being adapted to deliver a wattage of about 600 w./sq. ft. to said conductive plate, which latter is allowed to reach a maximum of about 450* F., electric control means for pulsing input wattage to said bottom heating element at an input cycle of about 30 to 70 percent of 5 minutes, so as to permit maximum tolerable energy flow by conduction through said plate, food pan and into the frozen food, and electric control means for regulating the temperature within said compartment so as to prevent the ambient condition from exceeding an oven air temperature of about 800* F., all of said electric control means being manually operable and said electric control means for said top and bottom heating elements being responsive to said temperature control means.