Easy-Bake Oven

The Easy-Bake Oven, currently a product of Hasbro, is a working toy oven that for many years used an ordinary light bulb as a heat source, but now has a true heating element. Eleven versions of the Easy-Bake Oven have been sold. By 1997, more than 16 million Easy-Bake Ovens had been sold.

The oven comes with packets of pastry mix and small round pans. (Additional mixes can be purchased separately.) After water is added to the mix in the pan, it is pushed into the oven through a slot. After cooking, the cake is pushed out through a slot in the other end.

Originated by Kenner

This iconic toy was introduced in 1963 by Kenner Products, a Cincinnati, Ohio, based toy company. Often cited as a favorite childhood toy by women and men alike, Easy-Bake has even served as the inspiration for the careers of celebrity chefs such as Bobby Flay. The early models were designed to look like miniature conventional ovens. Later models were designed to look like microwave ovens. The current model looks more like a modern floor-standing oven.

Although the toy's creation has been falsely claimed by many who apparently wish to attach their names to a bit of toy history (and incorrectly attributed in an episode of Food Network's Unwrapped to a deceased Kenner salesman whose solitary contribution was to suggest that Kenner make a pretzel oven after seeing pretzel vendors on a trip to New York City), the Easy-Bake Oven was the invention of Ronald Howes, who conceived of the design, built the first model, and sold the rights to the company. Howes also had a hand in either inventing or refining many other classic Kenner toys such as Play-Doh, Spirograph, Give-a-Show Projector, and Close-and-Play Record Player.

Hasbro versions

The Easy-Bake Oven and Snack Center was introduced in 1993; as of 2008 due to product recalls, it is the sole model offered on the manufacturer's website. It is powered by a 100 watt light bulb that was sold separately from the oven. Another, more sleek design, was introduced later.

A decade later, the Real Meal Oven was released. It won the 2003 Best Toy Parenting magazine Toy of the Year Award. Unlike previous versions, this oven could bake two pans at once. The neutral colors were appropriate for both genders. The pans were bigger, and it could bake both desserts and meals. Also, this model featured a heating element and did not require a light bulb.

In 2006, a different version of the Easy-Bake was released. It featured a stove-top warmer, and like the first version by Hasbro, it had smaller pans and only could bake one pan at a time. It also had a heating element.

The new front-loading Hasbro design, a substantial departure from the traditional push-through arrangement, was apparently ill-conceived as all (approx. 985,000) such units were recalled over safety concerns and reported injuries.

The oven was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2006.

Recalls

In a February 6, 2007 press release, Hasbro and the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled 985,000 Easy-Bake toy ovens after finding that kids' hands and fingers can get caught in the oven's opening, thereby posing serious risk of burns.

Since the announced recall, 249 reports of children getting their hands or fingers caught in the ovens, including 16 reports of second- and third-degree burns, and partial finger amputation. As a result, Hasbro recalled all front-loading Easy Bake ovens sold since May 2006, even those that were repaired with the free kit distributed after the February 2007 recall.

See: 2007 Chinese export recalls.

In Popular Culture

• In the sitcom Friends Monica Geller owned "six or seven" Easy-Bake ovens as a child.
• In the Seinfeld episode "The Merv Griffin Show", Elaine becomes excited at the chance to use an original Easy-Bake Oven belonging to Jerry's girlfriend.
• In one episode of the USA network show, Psych, Shawn Spencer bakes a pineapple upside-down cake for nineteen hours in an Easy Bake Oven with a sixty watt light bulb
• In an episode of That's So Raven, Raven refers to her food made from an Easy Bake Oven.
• In an episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, owners of an apartment say that the Easy Bake Oven that Maddie donated has the name Chef Maddie on it. Also it is asked, "You made a cake from an oven that uses a light bulb?"
• In an episode of How I Met Your Mother, Marshall gives Lily an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas after he finds out from Ted that she wanted one as a child, but her feminist mother gave her a Lego set instead.
• In an episode of MADtv, they make a parody of a better, easier, non-dangerous oven for children.