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 :)

  • graycube@lemmy.world
    111·
    22 hours ago

    Before we had fancy temperature controlled ovens, probably for all but the last 100 years worldwide, bakers used wood fired ovens, coal fired ovens, and solar ovens usually lined with bricks, stone, clay, and/or cast iron. Figuring out the the temperature was a mix of guesswork, rules of thumb, experience, and luck.

    I read somewhere that many bakers were skeptical of this new technology. That a lot of marketing had to be done and it was often sold to beginners as easier to get started baking.

    There are really only 3 temperatures needed. Low, Medium, and High. The other factor is how fast your oven cools down after you add the food.

    When I bake bread I’ll start with a relatively high temperature and the lower it every few minutes to simulate the wood fire slowly dieing back.

    When I bake on an open fire I’ll use a cast iron “Dutch Oven” and put it in the coals or near the coals depending on whether I want “high”, “medium”, or “low”.

    Usually I want high temperatures for pizza. Or for searing and roasting and toasting. Medium temperatures for baking ordinary things (pies, cakes, cookies), and low temperatures for slow roasts or very large and heavy dishes or beans (which take a long time to cook).

    In Farenheit I usually think 400-450 is “high”, 350 is Medium, and 275-325 is low. You can go higher, of course but usually we move to the stove top or grill for that. And lower sometimes, but usually we use a slow cooker for those many hours long projects.