As the days start to become cooler, the way we cook often starts to change too. As lighter summer meals give way to slow cooked dishes, roasts, homemade pizzas and more time spent baking, the extra oven space and specialist cooking functions become especially useful.

It is also the season for cooking that takes a little longer. A casserole might spend the afternoon in a slow oven, a Sunday roast can involve several dishes at once, and weekends are often the perfect excuse to try something more involved.

From slow cooking and air frying to rotisserie roasting, here are some ways to make more of your range cooker this autumn...

 

Take Your Time with Slow Cooking

Slow cooking is an obvious place to start as the weather cools, and the Rangemaster Estel Deluxe 110 BC has been designed with a dedicated 27-litre slow cook cavity alongside its two main ovens. 

Rather than using one of the primary ovens at a low temperature for several hours, the separate thermostatically controlled cavity is specially intended for long, gentle cooking. It can be used for casseroles, braised meats and joints, as well as dishes such as jacket potatoes. The temperature can be adjusted for conventional slow cooking over several hours or extended cooking over a longer period, which makes it perfect for meals that can be prepared well in advance. 

Alongside it are two generous 80-litre ovens. The left-hand multifunction cavity provides a choice of fanned, conventional, fan assisted, fanned grilling, browning and base-heat functions, while the second 80-litre cavity operates as a fanned oven. 

That combination is particularly useful for autumn meals. A casserole can remain in the slow-cook oven while bread bakes in the multifunction cavity and another dish cooks in the fanned oven, without having to compromise on temperature or timing. 

The Estel Deluxe is available with either a gas or induction hob configuration, allowing the cooking surface to be matched to the way you prefer to cook.

 

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Give Midweek Meals More Variety

Autumn comfort food does not always need hours in the oven. On busier evenings, the Stoves Richmond Deluxe offers functions that can make quicker meals feel a little more considered, particularly with its integrated AirFry and Steam & Infuse options. 

AirFry is ideal for foods where a crisp finish matters. Homemade potato wedges, breaded chicken, cauliflower bites or roasted root vegetables can all be cooked using the dedicated AirFry tray, which allows hot air to circulate around the food more effectively. Because the function is built into the main oven, there is also considerably more room than you would typically find in a countertop air fryer, making it useful when cooking for the whole family rather than one or two portions.

Steam & Infuse takes a different approach. Adding moisture during cooking can be great for autumn roasts, from a whole chicken to pork or seasonal vegetables, helping to retain moisture while the food cooks. Flavoured stocks or herbs can also be introduced through the Steam & Infuse accessory, adding another layer to the finished dish. 

With the Richmond Deluxe's multiple oven cavities, these functions can be used alongside the rest of the meal. It gives you more ways to approach familiar autumn dishes without making the cooking process unnecessarily complicated. 

 

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Make Homemade Pizza Part of Autumn Weekends

Homemade pizza is an easy way to make more of an autumn weekend, especially when the cooker has a setting designed specifically for it. 

The Rangecookers Select 90ei2 features a 74-litre multifunction main oven with 12 cooking functions, including a dedicated pizza mode, and a temperature range of 40-300°C. That higher maximum temperature is great for homemade pizza, where strong heat helps the dough cook quickly and develop a crispier base while the toppings finish at the same time. 

Autumn ingredients work particularly well here, making a simple homemade pizza feel much more seasonal. The separate 47-litre secondary oven can also be used at the same time for garlic bread, roasted vegetables or another dish that needs a different temperature. 

On top, the five zone induction hob gives you plenty of space for preparing everything before the pizza goes into the oven. A bridging zone can accommodate larger cookware, while functions including melt, simmer, keep warm and power boost are useful for jobs such as slowly caramelising onions or reducing a tomato sauce.

With all of this, the Select 90ei2 gives you all the cooking space needed for a relaxed homemade pizza night without taking over the whole kitchen.

 

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Make More of a Sunday Roast

A Sunday roast is perhaps the clearest example of where a larger, multifunction range cooker can make a difference. Meat, roast potatoes, vegetables, Yorkshire puddings, gravy - they all need their own space and timings, and the ILVE Majestic gives you several ways to manage them.

One of its most distinctive features is the rotisserie, which is particularly well suited to a whole chicken. As the meat turns continuously during cooking, the heat reaches the surface more evenly while the natural fats and juices move around the joint. The result is the combination most people are looking for from a roast chicken: browned crisp skin with tender meat underneath. 

The rotisserie can also be used for other suitable cuts, making it a useful alternative to conventional tray roasting when preparing the centrepiece for Sunday lunch.

Meanwhile, the Majestic's other oven functions can take care of everything around it. Potatoes can roast at a higher temperature in another cavity, while vegetables cook on the hob and gravy reduces in a pan. ILVE's precise electronic oven temperature control also helps when moving between dishes that need quite different cooking conditions.

 

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Explore Different Styles of Hob Cooking

As autumn progresses, the hob often becomes just as important as the ovens. Soups simmer for longer, casseroles begin with browning meat and softening vegetables, sauces need time to relax and larger pans find their way back onto the cooker. 

The Lacanche Citeaux is especially interesting because its hob can be configured around the type of cooking you do most often. Traditional gas burners offer visible, immediately adjustable heat that works well for everything from bringing a large pan of soup to the boil to gently reducing a red wine sauce.

Induction provides a different experience, with quick heat response and precise temperature control that can be particularly useful when moving from high-temperature searing to a low simmer. 

There are also specialist hob options available, allowing the Citeaux to become much more individual. A plancha, for example, provides a large flat cooking surface that lends itself to seared vegetables, steaks, fish or even breakfast cooking, while other configurations can prioritise additional burners or different cooking surfaces depending on how the cooker will be used. 

This choice is valuable when preparing large autumn meals. Beef can be browned before going into a casserole, onions can soften slowly in another pan, and stock or gravy can reduce alongside them without the hob feeling overcrowded. 

Below the hob, the Citeaux's generous oven arrangement continues the same idea. The simmer oven is ideal for dishes that benefit from gentle heat or for holding completed elements of a meal while everything else is finished. For a long Sunday lunch or dinner with several courses, that combination of hob choice and oven space gives the cook considerably more control over how the meal comes together.

 

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Make Time for Autumn Baking

Autumn is a natural time to bring baking back into the kitchen, whether that means a loaf of bread for the weekend, cinnamon rolls, or a batch of something warm straight from the oven. 

The Rangemaster Classic Deluxe 110 OC is well equipped for this thanks to its dedicated 25-litre proving drawer. Rather than finding a warm corner of the kitchen for dough to rise, the drawer provides a separate space specifically suited to proving before baking. It can also be used for tasks such as resting meat or warming plates, but it comes into its own when making bread, rolls or enriched doughs. 

Once the dough is ready, the 80-litre multifunction main oven offers several ways to control the bake. Rangemaster's DUO function combines fan and base heat, making it useful for cakes, pastries and other bakes where you want even cooking while still developing the base. A second 80-litre fanned oven means another dish can be cooking at the same time, so a loaf can go into one cavity while dinner carries on in the other. 

This cooker is perfect for the type of autumn cooking that happens over the course of a whole afternoon: bread proving below, something baking above, and another meal cooking alongside it. 

 

The appeal of autumn cooking is not simply that the food changes, it is also the way we use the kitchen differently.

There is more time spent roasting, baking and slow cooking, and more meals involve several different elements being prepared at once. A range cooker makes that easier by giving each part of the meal its own space. 

That is what makes a range cooker such a natural fit for your kitchen in autumn. It is not just about having more oven space, but about having more ways to cook, whether dinner is something that takes twenty minutes or an entire afternoon.

Explore the full collection of range cookers here or call us on 01244 402 975, to find the size, fuel type and cooking features that best suit your kitchen.