Problem-Solving, Oven Temperature Edition

It's been a disappointment parade lately here in the Three Bowls kitchen. Burnt bottoms, uncooked batter insides, grainy ice cream, a quiche that stubbornly refused to change from liquid to solid, ...there are probably more but I have blocked them out.

After that quiche (which I was forced to pour into a pan, scramble, pour back into the cooked shell and serve to my Book Club as the world's least attractive egg dish.)...

...I started researching possible causes related to one of the two Epicenters of Failure: the oven. (The other Epicenter: the ice cream machine. More on that some other time.)

The obvious starting point is the temperature. Step one was testing my oven thermometer.

You do this, per the instructions on this grilling website, by bringing water to a boil and immersing your oven thermometer into the boiling water. It should, ideally, register within a few degrees of the temperature of boiling water, 212 degrees.

My supposedly high-quality, less-than-a-year-old oven thermometer? Never got above 180. That's thirty degrees off.

That means when I have been thinking my oven is at 350 degrees, it's probably been closer to 380. I think this would explain why my baked goods have had a tendency to be burned on the outside while the inside remains undercooked.

I was very excited to discover this recently on a day when I had three different baking projects going.

Unfortunately, as I was knee-deep in three different baking projects, I momentarily lost the tiny grasp on common sense that I usually have, and accidentally adjusted in the opposite direction. That is, I set the oven temp so that the thermometer would register 30 degrees OVER the target temp, which would actually be 60 total degrees off. I didn't actually regain my common sense until the final project was in the oven.

As you can probably guess, the night was another sad float drifting listlessly down the street in the disappointment parade, more overdone outsides and underdone insides, but that's okay! A possible solution is in sight now that I can once again do simple math.

Another small and easy fix I learned about is adjusting the temperature selector knob on your oven itself. If you find it is running high or low, you can often take the knob off and make an adjustment on the underside to adjust for that. Full instructions in this article here.

Mine doesn't appear to be very exact (only offers "hotter" and "colder" options),

but after feeling very frustrated at my inability to improve the quality of my output, I'm just happy for any additional control at all. I will report back after the next batch of baking projects as to any improvements.

In the meantime, if you, too, have experience the heartbreak of disappointing baked goods, take a squinty-eyed look at your oven and oven thermometer. They might look innocent but be acting in secret cahoots to undermine your baking.

(One last oven temp tip: when using a glass or dark non-stick pans for baking, reduce the oven temp by 25 degrees.)