Note: The Sabbath mode does not allow us to turn these appliances on or off on the Sabbath. The Sabbath mode also does not allow us to use these appliances completely at will on Shabbos or Yom Tov. Rather, it enables us to use these appliances within the guidelines of halacha as delineated in the letters of certification (available from the Star-K office) or as posted in our appliance section.

http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-cooking-SM.htm

Observant Jews do not push the buttons on a certified Kosher oven on the Sabbath. People who observe the Sabbath plan the Friday night and Shabbat day meals well in advance. It’s not like we’re thinking on Sabbath day, “oh I think I have a hankering for a piece of cake. I’ll just go make a cake now.” Instead we’re thinking on Friday morning, “oh and I better make sure we have cake for a special Shabbos treat.” We have the food cooked well before sundown Friday night. I use my top oven to keep the food warm, and my bottom oven for hot food the next day.

That said, your description of how Sabbath mode works is at odds with the instructions manual for the oven, my testing of Sabbath mode in the oven itself, and what’s described in the Wired article to which I linked. The oven we own has a time gramma built in, as described in the article. I tried out the mode when I found it, and it does indeed start up the oven at a random interval after the time and temperature are input, going up to about a minute. I can even cancel the settings, perhaps on the theory that pushing that button directly causes a lack of work. Not sure about that last, though.

So while leaving an oven on for 25 hours has long been a Sabbath hack, there are apparently more advanced hacks now, ones that allow for button-pushing on the Sabbath. I don’t know if they satisfy everyone’s reading of Sabbath law, but they’re apparently good enough for “the Star-K rabbinical authority, Moshe Heinemann” (from the Wired article).

It maintains the set temperature more or less during that time. If you open the oven to take something out (to warm something pre-cooked), the light will not turn on and the heating element will not automatically go on in response to the cool air from opening.

We frumskis are legalistic and obsessed, but not quite as dumb and hypocritical as you assumed.

Alton Brown cooks in a studio. He used to cook in his producer’s kitchen till they got a cease and desist order from a neighbor.

Eric,

The probe thermometer works really well with a Turkey at Thanksgiving. I have a convection oven with a probe thermometer and the Turkey cooked in less time, had moist white meat and fully cooked dark meat. I didn’t even have to use Alton’s shield (sorry, inside joke).