May I bake a cake in a Fleishig oven and then eat it with milk?

May I bake a cake in a Fleishig oven and then eat it with milk?

If I bake pareve in a fleishig oven, is it still considered pareve? A fleishig (meaty) oven affects the status of pareve (neutral, i.e. containing no meat, poultry or dairy products) food by transferring the taste of food residue that may be on the oven rack, or which was previously absorbed through cooking splatters and steam. 

Even if care was taken while cooking meat or chicken dishes to use a pan that prevents the racks and oven from being splattered, we may not mix the pareve food with milchigs l’chatchilah (primarily, i.e. intentionally) on account of steam from the fleishig food that was absorbed in the walls of the oven and later released while cooking the pareve food. (This requirement is specific to Ashkenazim. Among Sefardim, the psak—ruling—is more lenient.)

However, if the pareve food was mixed with milchigs (dairy), the food may be eaten b’dieved (ex post facto), provided that the fleishig oven was clean. 

What if I want to eat my pareve food with milchigs? In order to bake pareve food in a fleishig oven with the intent of eating it with milchigs—for example, cake with coffee or challah at a dairy meal—the oven has to be purged of its fleishig status. To do so in an expedient (if lenient) manner, it is enough to turn on the empty, clean oven for a short while—such as when preheating it—before baking the pareve food. There are a number of factors that would allow for this kulah (leniency), among them the assumption that the oven originally became fleishig through steam only. This leniency, however, does not apply to baking actual dairy food in a fleishig oven.

(The halachos of a fleishig oven that has not been used for over twenty-four hours—eino ben yomo–are not as strict. More details on baking in a fleishig oven can be found in Halachah #49. For a general discussion on using eino ben yomo, see Halachah #443.) #622

https://halacha2go.com?number=622

Practical Halacha: One minute a day. By Horav Yosef Yeshaya Braun, shlita, Mara D'asra and member of the Badatz of Crown Heights.