Just found out why my bread keeps collapsing halfway through baking

I was watching a baking channel on youtube last night and the guy said most home ovens run about 25 degrees cooler than what you set them to. So i grabbed my oven thermometer from work and tested my oven at 350. It was reading 315. No wonder my sourdough keeps falling flat halfway through baking. Has anyone else tested their oven temp and found a big difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugo376d ago

The "25 degrees cooler" thing is kinda true but it's not that simple. Most ovens actually swing way more than that. My old oven would go from 330 to 370 when set to 350, so it wasn't consistently cold it was all over the place. You gotta watch the thermometer over like 10-15 minutes to see the real cycle. That up and down is probably what's killing your sourdough more than just being 25 degrees off. The temp drops when you open the door to put the bread in and then it takes forever to recover if your oven's cycling slow. Get a pizza stone or a baking steel too, that helps even out the heat swings.

diana_bell745d ago

Yeah, the "open the door and it takes forever to recover" part hit home for me. I had the exact same problem with my old gas oven. What finally fixed it for me was just preheating way longer than I thought I needed to. Like 45 minutes instead of 15. That got the walls and racks hot enough that when I opened the door to put the bread in, the temp drop was way less and it came back up fast. Also started keeping a cheap oven thermometer on the rack next to my bread so I could see what was actually happening instead of guessing. The pizza stone thing is good advice too. I use a cheap unglazed quarry tile from the hardware store instead of spending money on a steel. Same idea, way cheaper.