Rangemaster Nexus 110 Dual Fuel Range Cooker

I’ve used the Rangemaster Nexus for a little over a year and I am, on the whole, very impressed. This has been my first step away from regular electric cookers, and having grown up with an Aga I was hoping to get a similar ‘Aga experience’ without the £12k price tag and high usage/maintenance costs. What I got was something a little different but very pleasing non-the-less:

Hobs:

The hobs are good, no doubt about it. I was a little worried that the gas rings Rangemaster make were a little flimsy but the Nexus ones seems to be quite solid. There is a small, two medium and one large gas rings plus a massive wok ring. It’s worth pointing out that the wok ring has two rings of flames so that you don’t get a ‘cold spot’ in the middle (as you do with some).

Ovens:

There is a fan oven, a multi oven and a proving drawer (all electric). I tend to use the fan oven more than anything else because the circulation is so good. I have had experiences where the heat is too dry and fierce though and the conventional oven function works very well (as you might expect). There is a ‘joint rack’ which I’ve used several times, very handy if you regularly cook roasts, much less chance of burning yourself. I use the proving drawer a lot, it does what you’d expect.

Grill:

The grill was my slight concern before buying (I couldn't find a review when I bought, which is why I’m writing one now). My worry was that you can’t raise or lower the grill with this design. It is easy to burn things I’m afraid, that is a fact. However, there are actually two height ‘settings’ (if you flip the grill pan upside down it is much lower/higher) and you can control the heat of the grill to three settings. You can also set the grill to use only half of the elements – to heat only one side. That said, the grill is the only part of the Cooker that could probably be better. Setting 1 is about as hot as your breath on a cold day, setting 2 about as hot as your hands if you rub them together like karate kid, setting 3 is 16x hotter than the centre of the sun.

Hot plate:

There is also an electric hot plate. This is good for something like pancakes but doesn't really get hot enough for something like ‘American breakfast potato hash’ or anything like that. I don’t tend to use it that much, it ends up being somewhere to put hot pans when there is no room anywhere else.

Other:

There is a clock and a timer, easy to use, works fine. You’ll need a big powerful hood with this, worth getting a good one I recon.

Looks:

Balh blah blah, either you like it or you don’t. I bought it in black and I think it looks great.

Conclusion:

I didn’t want to write a review until I’d used it for at least a year. I have and I’m happy with it. I would buy it again if we moved to a new house. If it fits your price range then go for it. If you’ve got loadza money then maybe take a look at the next price bracket, you might find that things are even better, but for the average home cook – you probably don’t need to.