I have an oven that’s rated to reach 200 degrees C (around 400-ish in F) (I can’t put in higher temperatures on the device), but some recipes tell you to bake at higher temps than that. Does that mean that I can’t bake that item in my oven, or can I just adjust for time?
Let’s say the recipe says to bake at 225 degrees C for 25 minutes, I then bake it for 35 minutes at 200?
*edit* Thank you all for the answers, I’m going to try your suggestions and see if the recipe will allow for such an adjustment, and if not, I’ll see if I can replace my crappy oven with a better one :)
No. Baking, unlike the cooking of say a sous chef, is a strict formula and the temperature is a big part of that formula.
Typically when you alter the temperature of baking things turn out really bad.
What you will find is that the temperature varies with ovens. Some ovens run really hot and some run really cold.
So if the recipe calls for 350, your oven may say it is at 350 when it is really at 375 or 325. You then have to find the sweet spot for your oven.
But if you the recipe calls for 350 and your oven can’t get to 350, the dish is doomed.
While it’s absolutely true that baking is a strict formula, I don’t agree that not reaching a given temperature means it’s necessarily doomed. It might achieve a somewhat different outcome, but for a whole bunch of baked goods a lower or higher temperature with adjusted time will produce something perfectly acceptable.
As you say, most people have no idea what temperature their oven actually produces, or fail to adjust for the strength of fan assist or placement in the oven. Sometimes this leads to frustration and failure, but many delicious cookies have been baked with imprecission.
But only an experienced baker will know this, and off-hand I can’t think of anything where I could trade off time for temp
Plus most ovens don’t hold a single temp, but vary between two points attempting to average the set point.
Convection ovens improve the stability of the average temp throughout the oven.
Absolutely and many ovens have hot spots within them. Like all tools one must learn how their oven functions.
Thanks for this answer, I’ll have to measure the actual temperature inside the oven, see how hot it can run. Maybe it does reach 225 (440) but it only reports 200.