Among the other kitchen appliances, the oven can be a very tough one to clean. The grease, a well roasted one, with a crunchy blackened cover, some burnt food residuals can be very tough to remove even with a special cleaning solutions. There are very simple and effective ways to clean that actually, without using expensive cleaning solutions.

The hardest part of the oven cleaners is by far the baked-on black carbon stuff, at the back of the oven. The following are the easy steps to clean it, using very common household items.

1. Get your hands on a spray bottle and baking soda. You can buy baking soda in a bulk, to make it worth less.

2. Place three full teaspoons of baking soda into the spray bottle. The three teaspoons are enough for approximately a one litre spray bottle.

3. You can use a funnel to put the soda into the bottle. You can use water to help it make its way inside. Fill the bottle with water. Make sure to leave some room free. You will notice some undissolved soda at the bottom of the bottle. Shake it.

4. You must not proceed with the cleaning unless the oven is cold. This is due to two main reasons. One – you can't burn your hands when the oven is cold. Two – you will end up with the soda all over the place if the oven is heated. Spray the improvised cleaning solution inside the oven.

5. Use your oven as you would normally do. Keep spraying the solution between meals. You will not be harmed by the soda, since it is an ingredient in many recipes and you are using it in a diluted way, so the taste wont be affected as well. The carbon parts will be cleaned this way. The residual will fall down in a look of black powder, which may be cleaned afterwards with ease. Your oven will be quite messy after this so choose the time when you are doing it.

6. The black residual can be removed with a damp cloth. You can apply the spray many times, but you can wipe it only once. The baking soda has to accumulate on the surface for it to do its job.

You will have to do this until the black residual is gone, but eventually it will be gone, and if you keep this for a precaution measure, there will be much less  residual in the future. Oven cleaners suggest this approach. It is cheap – can't argue that, and it is effective.