Countertop oven with thin-film heating element

Abstract

A cooking appliance includes an inner housing with an inner wall defining an interior space, an outer housing that includes an outer wall having an inner surface opposed to and spaced from an outer surface of the inner wall to define an insulating layer therebetween, and at least one thin-film heating element coupled to the outer surface of the inner wall.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 980,468 filed Apr. 16, 2014, which is incorporated herein in its entirety.BACKGROUND[0002]The present invention relates generally to cooking appliances used for baking foods, and more particularly to an oven capable of cooking different types of food products relatively quickly and properly.[0003]Cooking appliances such as portable or tabletop cooking appliances including, e.g., pizza ovens and toaster ovens are used for baking various foods including, but not limited to, crusted-type foods, e.g., breads, pizzas, calzones, and the like. One drawback associated with at least some known cooking appliances is that they may be designed for only cooking a single type of food product. To cook a single type of food product, an oven may be designed to provide heat energy (e.g., infrared, convection, etc.) in a manner that facilitates optimizing cooking of that single type ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent text describes three types of cooking appliances that use thin-film heating elements. These elements are placed on the inner or outer wall of the appliance and insulated from other components to improve energy efficiency. The technical effects of this design include improved cooking performance, reduced energy consumption, and improved user safety. The three embodiments mentioned in the patent text are a cooking appliance, a toaster oven, and a pizza oven.

Problems solved by technology

One drawback associated with at least some known cooking appliances is that they may be designed for only cooking a single type of food product.

To cook a single type of food product, an oven may be designed to provide heat energy (e.g., infrared, convection, etc.) in a manner that facilitates optimizing cooking of that single type of food product, but that is inefficient and / or ineffective in cooking different types of food products.

Accordingly, if the same cooking appliance is used to cook a second type of food product (e.g., deep dish pizza), the second type of food product may be cooked improperly (e.g., unevenly heated, underheated, burned, soggy, etc.) in the cooking appliance.

This results in relatively long overall cook times, which are generally undesirable.

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