When it comes to the kitchen, there are few things nastier than a gunk-covered oven. Whether the goo is a result of previous tenants, epic cooking fails, or kids’ experiments that went slightly askew, cleaning the oven can be a huge task. Some of us simply leave the mess, hoping it will burn off after some unknowing period of time, but it usually doesn’t. Sadly, the problem on persists until something is done about it.
The real problem is that self-cleaning ovens can instead damage themselves and chemical cleaners not only smell horrible, they’re extremely bad for the environment as well. So unless you have someone else clean your oven, it looks like you’ll be spending some time scrubbing.
Luckily, there’s an easier way thanks to Wendy Honenburg from Awakening Willow that only uses two ingredients. As she demonstrates in the video below, baking soda and water is all you really need to deep clean the oven.
Simply sprinkle the baking soda, squirt some water from a water bottle, let it sit overnight, and wipe it down with a damp towel later for the easiest oven cleaning technique that will make the worst caked-on goo disappear.
As Sarah Aguire, housekeeping expert at About.com, points out, baking soda combined with water creates a "thick, non-abrasive paste that absorbs odors and oils, all while gently scrubbing away burned-on food." She, like Honenburg, agrees that allowing the baking soda to sit for some time helps to break up anything that may be really stuck to the oven.
Check out the video below to see just how well it works.
