Overheard a baker at the farmers market say 'the oven lies' and it clicked for me

I was picking up some honey last weekend and the person at the bread stall was telling a customer how their home oven's 'ready' beep is often wrong. They said to always use a separate oven thermometer. I tried it with my last batch of cookies and the temp was off by almost 25 degrees, which explains my flat, greasy fails. Has anyone else found a big difference with a simple tool like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

abby_palmer1mo ago

Grab a cheap oven thermometer and test something you don't normally bake, like a frozen pizza. I threw one in my oven and found the back corner runs 30 degrees hotter than the front, so my cookies were burning on one side and raw on the other. That little tool showed me which shelf is the sweet spot for even heat. Now I always rotate my baking sheets halfway through and leave the pizza on the lower rack. It's wild how much a simple piece of metal can fix your whole cooking game.

reese_singh873mo ago

That "oven lies" thing made me check my air fryer, and its temp was way off too.

noah3873mo ago

My old toaster oven was off by almost 25 degrees, so I had to buy an oven thermometer. It's crazy how common this is with small appliances. You just can't trust the built-in dials or digital readouts at all. I end up checking everything with a separate thermometer now for baking or roasting. It adds an annoying extra step, but at least the food turns out right.