Abstract: A cooking appliance includes a controller which calculates a desired percentage of hot air convection and microwave energy needed to perform a cooking operation based on selections made by a user through a menu driven display. The display prompts a user for a programming inputs, while also displaying operational information to the user as needed. The programming options enable the user to select between various different cooking operations and also provides for appealing cooking sequences to be stored as cooking recipes. As needed, certain pre-cooking functions are automatically performed, such as heating or cooling of the oven cavity, as needed.