Stoves Sterling Deluxe D1100Ei ZLS Review
Large, powerful and excellent to cook on.
Verdict
Largely a triumph, this freestanding stove has an incredible zoneless induction hob with the most intuitive touchscreen controls that I’ve used. With four oven cavities below, the Stoves Sterling Deluxe D1100Ei ZLS is a high-end product for those that love to cook. It does a great job, cooking evenly and well, but I’d like a temperature control on the slow cook oven.
Pros
- Excellent zoneless induction hob
- Huge amount of oven space
- Even cooking results
Cons
- Only one oven has a light
- No temperature control in slow cooker
Key Features
- TypeThis freestanding appliance has four oven cavities and a zoneless induction hob.
- Hob burnersHas a true zoneless induction hob: you can place pans where you want them.
Introduction
For those who truly love to cook and need the flexibility to have lots going on at once, the Stoves Sterling Deluxe D1100Ei ZLS is a great choice.
With four individual ovens, and an innovative FreedomFLEX zoneless induction top, this electric range cooker has a lot of flexibility and generally delivers excellent results.
Design and features
- Zoneless induction top
- Four cookers
- Lots of accessories and shelves
A full-size range cooker, the Stoves Sterling Deluxe D1100Ei ZLS is a super-sized cooking appliance for those who need the utmost flexibility. Finished in stainless steel, with large metal control dials on the front, this oven screams quality and would work well as a centrepiece to a high-end kitchen.
Its standout feature is the FreedomFLEX zoneless induction top. Technically there are three zones on top (left, right and middle), but it doesn’t matter where inside these zones you place a pan, you can either place multiple smaller pans or one (or more) larger items.
Drop a pan down and the intuitive touchscreen lights up to show where the pan is, giving controls. The more pans you add, the more controls are added and, as each control appears where a pan is, it’s easy to adjust power settings.
Tap a control and there are the basic cooking controls to choose from: power settings from zero (off) to nine, plus a Boost mode. With five pans on the induction top, I could set all of them to the Boost setting.
As well as normal power settings, each control gives additional automated options: melt, simmer and keep warm.
There are also timers available for each cooking control, plus one individual timer that you can use for timing something else.
Neatly, a pause button stops cooking until you hit Play, making it easy to take the heat away if you need to quickly. I’ve used a lot of induction hobs, but the simple, straightforward interface here is the easiest that I’ve used, and the flexibility available is incredible.
Underneath are four individual ovens. Top left is the primary grill and conventional oven, which comes with a grill pan, and a telescopic shelf mount inside. There are two dials to control this space: one is a control mode, with temperature settings between 60°C and 260°C; plus, it has three grill options, depending on how much of the grill you want in operation. Then, there’s a grill setting dial, which goes from one to eight.
This oven has space for four shelves, and has one telescopic mount pre-fitted at the bottom, although you can move this if you need to.
Underneath is a 71-litre electric oven, which has bread-proving, slow-cook and keep-warm automatic features, then a temperature control that goes between 60°C and 240°C.
For the most features, you’ll want the digital oven, which is controlled via a programme dial, with temperatures or modes set on the main screen. This oven has lots of modes: fan, pizza, intense, conventional, bottom heat, top heat, bottom heat with fan, defrost, grill, and fan-grill modes. There’s also a mode that’s not listed in the oven, but the icon looks like it’s for proving bread (only, it’s a different icon to the one listed in the manual). Temperatures here go between 50°C and 250°C.
This oven has three regular shelf mounts, with one telescopic mount installed. The top shelf bracket has three positions, making it easy to adjust the height from the grill if you’re using that.
At the bottom is a slow cook compartment, which has a simple on/off control. Some temperature control here would be good, so that this compartment could be used for warming plates. As it is, I measured the cavity at 150°C.
The two main ovens are the only ones with lights; I would have liked lights in each section to make it easier to see how food was cooking.
Only the digital oven has cooking time control options. You can set both a cooking time (the oven beeps at the end of this and stays warm for seven minutes); or you can set a cooking time and end time. With the latter, the oven warms up when needed, cooks for the required amount of time, finishing at the end time.
In the box, you also get a set of skewers and a meat roaster with a cup for herbs. The idea is that herbs go in the pot, and then the meat is roasted vertically to help it cook more evenly.
Performance
- Fast induction hob
- Good, even cooking
- Grills could be more even
I started off cooking a batch of oven chips in the digital oven. These cooked evenly, using a total of 0.418kWh, which is very good for an oven of this size. Only ovens with alternative cooking options, such as the Hisense BSA66346PDBGUK with its air-fry mode, can cook chips using less power.
I measured how evenly the oven heats, using a tray of ceramic beads and the oven set to 200°C. I found that using the top shelf, the oven measured 198°C at the front and 204°C at the rear, which is very even.
With the shelf in the middle of this oven, I found the temperature at the front 198.7°C and the back 204.2°C. Again, very even temperatures.
Using the conventional oven, the results were good, although not quite as impressive. At the top of the oven, I measured temperatures of 197.6°C at the front and 207°C at the rear.
Moving to the middle shelf, temperatures were 192.8°C at the back and 196.4°C at the rear.
Moving to the grills, I placed white bread under the grill in the separate compartment. Although the grill was slightly warmer towards the rear, the results were even, and each part of my bread was toasted.
In the digital oven, the grill doesn’t quite stretch across the entire cavity, so the toast was slightly less well done at the back left. Keep dishes in the middle of the space and you’ll get better results; plus, there’s always the separate grill compartment to use.
I tested the power of the hob by measuring how long it takes to bring water from 20°C to 90°C. I started with my large pan with 1.5-litres of water in it. This completed the test in 3m 47s, which makes it one of the fastest hobs I’ve tested. Using my middle-size pan with 1-litre of water, the test took 3m 28s. With the smallest pan, boiling 500ml of water took just 2m 13s.
I was impressed with the automatic melting option, too. This reduced my butter to liquid without any burning.
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Should you buy it?
You want lots of cooking space and a powerful hob
With two large ovens, a separate grill/oven, a slow cooker and zoneless induction hob, this oven is as flexible as it is powerful.
You prefer integrated appliances
If you have the wall space, you can have multiple integrated ovens, all placed at more comfortable heights.
Final Thoughts
It’s not cheap, but the Stoves Sterling Deluxe D1100Ei ZLS is solidly built, easy to use and has plenty of oven and grill space. I’m a huge fan of the induction hob, both in its zoneless working, and with the excellent touchscreen control. Overall, cooking results are excellent, but I’d ideally have liked the slow cook cavity to have a temperature control, and lights in all of the cavities would be good. If you want separates, check out my guide to the best induction hobs.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every oven we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main oven for the review period
We use ceramic beads and a thermal camera to see how evenly the oven heats.
We use slices of bread to see how evenly the grill cooks.
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FAQs
You can place a pan down anywhere, and that location becomes the burner – it’s very flexible and powerful.
It has two 71-litre ovens, a 41-litre oven/grill and a 41-litre slow cooker cavity.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
