An oven with high power radiant cooking elements which are capable of operating at different intensities is disclosed for cooking food quickly with infrared radiation. The conduction of this infrared radiant energy varies substantially from food to food. Accordingly, the user of the oven must develop a unique data base or recipe for each food. A recipe consists of a number of stages each of which defines the output intensity of each cooking element for a period of time. A method is disclosed for the real time development of a recipe by varying the intensity of the cooking elements during the cooking cycle, optimizing the developed recipe to reduce the number of stages, storing the optimized recipe in memory and retrieving the optimized stored recipe for future use.