She really broke it down by every possible metric. You have to appreciate how thorough she is

Ann Reardon: The mother the internet desperately needs but doesn't deserve.

My mom got an air fryer recently and she likes it for a reason you hadn't mentioned, which is that using the oven heats up the whole kitchen, while using the air fryer doesn't. The fact that the heat isn't leaking out so much is probably one reason the air fryer is so much more efficient-- but it also makes it much more comfortable to cook things during the summer!

"If you were in a dorm room craving some macarons" Guys, Ann's not out of touch with the youth at all. She knows what college kids want, and they want macarons.

Ann, i just wanted to tell you that i really appreciate the amount of time and work you put into your videos. It doesn't go unnoticed and it really shows. Thank you, Ann

I notice Dave never shows up to "test" when you're making good food. lol

I'm fairly sure macarons can sense fear and hesitation. They laugh at you derisively in a french accent if you make even a tiny mistake.

I got an air fryer a few years ago as a gift, and was skeptical. Then I cooked a 2 lb (0.9 kg) English roast to perfection in under 40 minutes. Then I cleaned it up in something like three minutes. I love the thing.

Ann: "I hope this works" *drops macarons perfectly into air fryer* Me: "I hope this works" *accidentally starts kitchen fire*

Finally, SOMEONE verbalized that an air fryer is just a mini, more efficient oven.

My real takeaway was that it shouldn't be called a fryer, just a mini-oven or mini-convection oven. How would it fry fish or chicken, or other foods that actually are only cooked in oil? Need a part 2.

Ann takes the scientific method to the next level, everything she compares stays constant,and she's INCREDIBLY thorough. Ugh I love ann

As a single person, not having to heat up a huge oven has its attractions.

My Opinion: Air fryers are convection ovens that don’t make the house the same temperature of Central Africa.

The difference with a airfryer and a normal convection oven is optimal air flow. In chemistry the rule of fist is that if you double your agitation, you can reduce in 10°C or use half the needed time. Now I never compared the air flows between them, but the story of Phillips also focuses on the optimal air flow. Here in The Netherlands airfryers are becoming very popular. They even sell a lot of products specially designed for airfryer and oven use. We use it for all kinds of product. We still have a deep fryer, but it stands retired for a few years already in the garage. Some tips to prepare in your Airfryer are sausages, other types of meats, reheat pizza slices and off course the Dutch cheese snacks in puff pastry we like to call “Kaassoufle’s” or to translate cheese soufflés (use some herbs in the bread crumbs 😉) Philips Netherlands also sells a lot of tools for optimal use of your airfryer, this so you don’t need to cover up your brownie 👍

I loved her smug smile at the beginning when she said “Because.. I’ve already got one 😏”

I dont think she realises it, but she is making everyones lockdown/quarantine WAY better.

'If you're in a dorm room craving macarons' Lol your college experience was MUCH different than mine

I’m so amazed that this channel exists finally REAL kitchen hacks REAL incredible.

As a Belgian who uses deep fryers regularly, you reuse the oil for quite a while untill it's too dirty and then you change it out. You don't change it out after every use.

Ugh she is SUCH a scientist and I love it. She literally has the procedure and all the variables down it’s amazing

Thanks so much for your family-friendly content- My sisters and I have been sitting here since six thirty waiting for this vid! One of us screamed and were like "Quick, She uploaded!" like a herd of elephants we thundered through the house lol. You probably understand what that sounds like having kids of your own! Fridays are our favourite day of the week ;) Love From Char, Lou, and Dooz

Would've been nice to see a comparison to a traditional toaster oven. They typically sell for cheaper, but I'm not sure what their energy consumption is. As well, a standard toaster oven appears to have the same dimensions as an air fryer.

Calories are those minions who sew your clothes tighter during the night.

Great.... now I have to buy one. I was so opposed to getting air fryer because I am thinking I have nothing to cook in it. The electricity test changed my mind. I never thought about that. Thank you Ann

This is a genuine deep-dive into the science behind air fryers. It's refreshing to see someone bringing some actual research to the conversation!

For the oven: try making a foil box around and over the chips with the open side towards the fan so that the volume around the chips is the same as the air fryer and see it behaves like an air fryer

The question that arises me after the video: why the hell is oil so expensive in your country? 20 $ !😯🤣🤣

This should have included a taste test.

I randomly found this channel in my recommendations about 5-Minute Crafts Life hacks. Finally KZfaq has recommended me some good quality stuff

"Convection" isn't a binary state. Probably the oven and the air fryer are moving air at different speeds, and they're definitely moving air in different directions. Both of which have an impact on how fast the heat transfers into the food.

I use my Airfryer exactly as a mini oven. Heats up faster, perfect for a quick meal for two people. Easier to clean.

me who's been using an air fryer for over a year : Wait we're supposed to preheat it before stuffing fried stuff in it?

Her kids: hey mom's making a video! Yay! Brownies, macaroons and other deserts!!!

I love how you have the perfect balance between a cooking show and a scientific one

If you're losing that much oil for that small an amount of fries, you might have the oil too cold or the heating element in the fryer isn't strong enough to maintain temperature when you initially add the fries.

Where I live, having an oven is quite rare, due to the size of the average house kitchen, so seeing a smaller alternative is great and definitely worth considering. Thanks for testing this out!

I wouldn’t have survived quarantine without people like Ann 😩

Late, but my mum got an airfryer recently and it makes my life so much easier. I'm autistic and have a balance disorder and other chronic heath issues, and it a far smaller drain on my energy to use. Even the small thing of not having to bend down to get stuff out of it like with the oven is a relief.

5:57 $20? oil costs that much where you live? that’s ridiculously expensive.

Me in the dorm with the boys: can we have macarons for snack? Homie: say no more luv

Can we talk about how gorgeous Anne's hair is looking😍😍😍

My friend gave me an air fryer. It was one of the older ones, with a huge glass bowl for the base. My children and I use it all the time. For the first few months, I wouldn't use it, but, now, we use it all the time. My children never wanted fried foods, again, since we started using it. They are definitely worth it. I have never had better chicken wings, than they are in the air fryer, either.

If you live and cook in a cold climate and need to heat your home anyway, energy efficiency doesn't really matter.

Oven secret: put frozen fries in cold oven. then turn the convection bake on at the recommended temp, and let the oven and fries heat up at the same time. Once the oven is hot, it'll take maybe 5-10 more minutes. This works when you want your food hot and crisp, basically reheating, though I do frozen pizza from cold oven as well.

It’s 2 pm in India and my online classes just ended at the exact moment this video was uploaded 😂

The air fryer I have is like a small oven with a window (Tower brand). It has 3 shelves and a rotisserie function. I've noticed it cooks much faster than my previous halogen oven (glass bowl type), when it stopped working I'd been going to replace like for like but decided to spend a bit more as we like rotisserie chicken. I've never felt the need to pre-heat as it seems to quickly get to temperature. I now use it more than I do my convection oven & am glad I spent the extra money.

Part of the reason the fries cooked faster is because of the airflow coming from the bottom. If you placed the fries on a rack in the conventional convection oven, it may speed things up quite a bit. The fries sitting on the cookie sheet have a side that is in full contact with the sheet, whereas the fries in the air fryer they have the holes in the bottom of the basket and they tend to end up semi layered, offering more air flow to keep them drier so they aren't steaming near as much as the conventional convection oven. I think a secondary thing with it is the location of the fan and overall size difference. The air fryer has it directly above and close to the heating elements, so all the air is being more consistently and evenly moved and heated, where unfortunately with the conventional oven, the fan is on the back of the appliance and the fries are only REALLY getting hit with the direct dry heat from one side, further inhibited by the rimmed baking sheet blocking some of that airflow. You would be better of just plain baking them in that oven than convection without the parchment paper, this would get the fries in direct contact with the hot metal, aiding in browning. If you're going to do the convection, you would definitely want them on a rack in the tray to get airflow on all sides. You could add a tablespoon of oil to the fries in a bowl, toss them in it THEN air fry them, that would give them a little bit more of a fast food crisp/taste as well. If you value your time, and aren't making a huge meal an air fryer is the way to go. Or just plain don't want to heat up the entire kitchen in the dead of summer. There are also now air ovens like the NInja ones.... that do a bit of everything with elements above and below that make them all the more convenient to do a larger number of say... chicken tenders or whatever in short fashion. I made crisp broiled salmon, then roasted some seasoned squash in ours this past weekend and it was amazing.

I love Ann because she follows a scientific procedure in all her experiments.

We got an air fryer about two weeks ago and EVERYTHING my partner can get his hands on has gone in 🤦‍♀️ resulted in some very interesting experiments!

4:34 its simply because the volume of the air fryer is less that the over so the particles can move faster, the faster the particles move the higher the temperature becomes! btw same thing for some peppers, the smaller the pepper the hotter it is. not sure if it works with every pepper but most of them it does work

My parents bought us one as a gift earlier this year after they bought one for themselves and were raving about it. I haven't used the oven since, although the hubs switches between the two. Best appliance I've ever had.

It's upsetting how clean Ann's oven is compared to mine D:

Here's my take: When you "fry" in oil, you are surrounding the food in hot oil to cook it from all directions at once. When you "fry" in an "air fryer," the fan is blowing hot air around the food so that the air itself is heating the food directly from many directions. The main difference between this a and the regular convection oven is that the latter relies on simply raising the temperature of the ambient air in the large oven, while the air fryer is blasting the food with heated air...Allowing for faster cooking.

Our new oven is a convenction oven that has an "air fry" option. From what I can tell the difference between convection and air fry is that when it runs in convection mode it runs the bottom heater(its a gas stove) and when it runs the air fryer it runs both the bottom and the top broiler heaters. So it may be a matter of more consistent heat from all sides

Slightly older video now and probably a hundred people have already said this but here's a comment for your engagement stats - my theory is that it's the amount of air going past the food that makes the difference (perhaps there are other factors too, like the one you mentioned). In the air fryer, the fan is closer to the chips and going directly on them, so more moisture gets evaporated out of them. Thanks for another great video, I've been curious about air fryers for ages.

Well that was the best sales pitch for an air cooker ever, someone needs to hire her.

Five minutes craft be like : write that down write that down

Could you do this type of comparison for slow cookers?? That would be soooo helpful! Love your videos ❤❤

Ann, you're amazing. Measuring the power it uses, great idea! And all your kitchen appliances are spotless! You earned a lot of respect from my side!

"The deep fried chips have four tablespoons of fat in them compared to the air fryer" yeah, but they look sooooooo much nicer!

I always get asked why I have a deep fryer when I could get an airfryer instead. And people don’t get that airfryers don’t fry... they bake basically. So yes they‘re worth it if you want a mini oven... but I want somewhere to make churros and Quarkbällchen and stuff and that just doesn’t really work in an oven :D

Love this!! We use our air fryer often. One other bonus, not heating up the house, like you would with using a standard oven. It's also smaller than a "toaster oven" as well, and when you have limited space, that's a big deal.

She didn't just bake using airfrier. Hail to the queen!

*Convection Toaster Ovens:* Am I a joke to you?

I bought one for my Grandad two weeks ago from Costco. He rang me this morning to tell me about all the things he had cooked with it and home much it has changed the way he cooks. He loves how easy it is and doesn’t smell like cooking fat in the house. He loves it which makes me so happy 😁

As for why Convection Oven versus Air Fryer is so different it actually has to do with the BOTTOM. When you place your chips in the air fryer, there are holes under it and a space for the heat to push and circulate. Cooking chips on a flat pan completely removes that air flow from below and creates uneven heat currents.

You've really got to appreciate how much work goes into these videos!

Your oven is the cleanest I’ve ever seen 😲

I'm Dutch and we love our deep-fried food and I feel I need to say that you don't throw away the oil after just one fry-up! Depending on your use it will last for a couple of weeks easy.

I got myself a combination toaster and convection oven, which had the ability to run the fan at the faster air fryer speeds. It's my preferred appliance over just an air fryer. For one, having a wider pan means that you can put more food on a single layer. And, it is more flexible, having modes that act more like a standard oven.

“I’m going to push the limits and try to make macarons” Me: Anne, you maniac!

I wonder how this would compare this to a toaster oven? It’s quite small so I think it might have lower kilowatt hours and might crisp up the chips more like an air fryer than a big oven? I can definitely bake in an toaster oven. It’s also got a convection feature which apparently US ovens don’t have convection fans as often.

i have an air fryer. i successfully baked lava cake in them. this can also be used to heat things up like frozen pizza or something. i baked a homemade pizza as well. definitely recommend

Really good video. I was wondering about buying one myself. This video was perfect to settle the question down.

Ah yes, I am craving a snack in my dorm room, let me make the most difficult and finnicky cookie ever invented.

Me: Homework Ann: Air Fryer Click

I'm in love with the quality of this video, the amount of attention to details and the actually useful variables that you have tested really set this video apart from other review videos in general. Thank you for making such a wonderful video

My air fryer is one of the over versions that can fit a small pizza, and it is all I use now.

I'll forever be amazed by this woman's intelligence. I never thought of buying an airfryer, but this video actually made me consider it.

Me and my family went to Costco and bought one and the airfriyer makes all the frozen food much more chrispy. In my opinon i feel like its a good cost

The reason the air fryer cooks and crisps better than the oven is because the fan to volume ratio is much smaller. This means the air fryer creates a much more powerful airflow inside, drying and heating the outside of the food much quicker. This is also why you needed to cover the Brownie, because it cooked the outside much quicker due to the higher power airflow (Airfryers do tend to dry out food a bit. The oven doesn't push the air as quickly allowing steam to build around the chips and heating the outside of the food slower than the airfryer. Love the vid!

The air flyer opened the world of cooking for me (that and quarantine). From people know only how to make instant noodles now I can cook pasta, baked brownies, Thai food, etc

This channel is so good! Anne's videos are never simple, they may look like it but she puts so much work and research into her videos. So good!

"Is it worth to watch Ann Reardon?" *GOD YES!!*

@howtocookthat every time I watch your channel it reminds me of my mom. She was a pastry chef in the Bay Area and a lot of her recipes wound up in some very well known cookbooks... if she had lived past 2012 I believe she would have her own channel now and it would have been something similar to this. It’s nice to see instead of just imagine the content she might have created. I like to believe that she would have derived as much joy from being a content creator as you do. Thank you that. 💙

Important to note that 'it would take X amount of exercise to burn the same amount of calories contained in Y amount of food' does not mean you need to do X amount of exercise to negate eating Y amount. A lot of those calories pass through the body unabsorbed and a lot more are burned in the body's normal processes even in resting state. So you don't necessarily need to run a half marathon every time you enjoy a plate of chips. Consuming 4 tablespoons of culinary fat doesn't automatically convert to 4 tablespoons of body fat.

I love how we came here for food but got an additional science lesson free of charge

Now you have me wondering where toaster ovens fit into all this.

I just received an air fryer toaster oven for Christmas! Since it's designed more like a toaster oven, I get to watch while the goods are being cooked! I love it!! Thanks for such a thorough review. One of these would truly be perfect for a dorm room.

The air fryer is cooking he chips on a grill/basket where the air can circulate all around. The convection oven chips are cooking on a plate that restricts convection air flow. The individual chips are less crowded on a tray so that slightly negates the reduced bottom flow, but not that much. The convection oven was the only cooking method where the heat didn't evenly surround the individual chips.

" if you were in a dorm room craving some macarons" never have i ever, but now the possibilities are endless

I think they’re deffo worth it! especially when there’s heaps of cheap ones out there, in general easier to use and quicker use, rather than waiting for it to preheat and cook, as for the crapfryer i hate the smell they leave in the house,

Well, if you buy the chips for the airfryer or oven (we have separate chips for those) then the amoint of oil is the same because they add that previously.

my mother got a smaller air fryer for her birthday(her 66th) and after two uses i could hear and see why it’s different and more efficient in a way: the convection is stronger in the air fryer due to the constant circulation of the air compared with the oven, plus a smaller amount of air is moving around making it easier to maintain contact with the food making it crisp better in a shorter period of time

Just to let you know, the element for the oven is behind the back plate, looped around the fan, the element at the top is likely just for the grill setting. That's why it didn't cook the chips faster on the higher shelf.

If you are in a college dorm room, owning an air fryer, and able to successfully make macaroons... I am just very impressed! 😶

I've been using a Ninja air fryer for about 2 years now and I love it. I usually give a light coating of sprayed oil (canola or sunflower typically) to get certain things really crispy, like chicken, egg rolls, tater tots / fries, etc.. It's the single best cooking-related purchase I've ever made

I'd like to see a toaster oven or other counter-top oven compared here as well. They will heat up as quickly as the air fryer, while having more utility and control, especially when using it to bake items. I also think this review is still missing a few points. Adding the cost of the oil for the deep fryer isn't exactly accurate - you certainly need to factor it as a cost of operating the fryer, but you're not adding a new $20 bottle of oil for every batch of fries. Over the time of use, the price will drop dramatically. Also, no mention was made towards the evenness of cooking or crispiness. Having used an air fryer before, I could tell at a glance that even that first batch of fries was not evenly cooked, and while several looked quite crispy, others in that batch were rather more on the soggy side. Having that instant heat transfer from the oil is something that air fryers will not be able to replicate any time soon. I would also like to know more about the promotion at the beginning of the video. Did the company that sent the air fryer have any say or review in the video prior to publication? I see in the details that TaoTronics additionally sponsored the video. How much input did they have in this? Air fryers are a great tool, and have many uses - but they are that - a tool. Choosing the right tool for the right job remains important, and the air fryer is simply another tool in your arsenal to use appropriately. I enjoy it for making healthier servings of fries at small family gatherings, especially due to the easier cleanup. In the case of larger cookouts however, the speed and efficiency of the regular fryer (and evenness of cooking) is more impactful. When it comes time to change the oil though, that cleanup is a task in itself.

This was very informative! I would love to see a similar video about rice cookers - rice never turns out the way I want it in a pan but I don't want to take up counter space with a separate cooker if the results aren't great!