The oven is the job everybody postpones, and the postponing is exactly what makes it hard. Left long enough, splatter stops being grease and becomes carbon — a brittle black crust welded to the enamel that no amount of furious wiping will shift. The good news is that the solution to that crust is mostly time, not effort. If you are willing to let something sit overnight, you can skip almost all of the scrubbing that gives oven cleaning its reputation.
Start by understanding what you are removing
There are two different problems inside an oven, and they need different approaches. The first is soft grease: the sticky amber film on the inside of the door and the upper walls, the residue from a roast that never quite got wiped. Hot water and a strong washing-up liquid solution will take that off with very little persuasion. The second is burnt-on carbon: the hard black patches on the floor and the bars of the shelves. That needs soaking, either in an alkaline paste or a hot detergent bath, so the deposit softens enough to lift.
Before anything else, take everything out — shelves, side runners, the grill pan, any trays stored inside. A large portion of the mess usually leaves with them, and you will clean a lot faster with an empty cavity. Scrape loose crumbs and burnt bits from the floor of the oven with a plastic scraper or a wooden spoon handle, and vacuum or sweep them up rather than smearing them around with a wet cloth.
