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 :)
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