[stephsherman323]

I recently bought a house with a convection oven. Does anyone have a tried and true conversion formula? I'd like to use it, but I just can't see ruining anything that I can cook perfectly well in a regular oven.

[AK-Edge]

The manual for my convection oven says to keep he cooking times the same but reset the tempurature to 25 degrees lower than instructed in the recipe. Hopefully it works the same for you too.

[Mezzaluna]

I have a convection cookbook and it agrees with what AK-Edge said. You really have to fiddle around some to see how your oven is. A good place to start is to buy an oven thermometer to verify that your thermostat is accurate.

I just read a piece in Cook's Illustrated that says home convection is best for cookies, roasts, yeasted breads, and pre-baking tart shells (this is like a cookie, isn't it??); it was not an advantage for cakes in their opinion. It also said that some manufacturers advise lowering the temperature by 25-50 degrees. The magazine will make home convection ovens the topic of a long-term study and report more later.

[Cme]

I am a professional Pastry Chef who has also held Sous Chef positions in Major Hotel Chain properties. The convection oven has a fan for the purpose of browning. A conventional oven uses radiant heat (no fan) and is best for general baking. I use a convection oven for baking things like puff pastries and browning. I also have found it useful for drying things - at a very low heat. But if you want to bake cake, cookies, and tarts, pies, etc. There is really no exact conversion for success. Some tools and methods are used just because they work to produce the desired result. If you can turn the fan off in the convection oven, then it will perform as a conventional oven.
Hope this helps!