gas oven vs electric oven temperature conversion

Recognizing these technological limitations, recipe writers in the 19 th century described only three temperatures: “slow,” for thin and delicate foods with low water content, “moderate,” for muffins and cookies, and “hot,” for crusty breads. (If you could count to thirty, the oven wasn’t hot enough for bread.) The most common method seems to have been holding one’s arm in the oven until it became intolerable. Others placed a strip of paper in the oven and timed how long it took for the paper to turn brown. If the flour turned black without catching fire, the oven was hot enough. Bread bakers, for example, dusted a little flour on the bottom of the oven after heating it. As a result, estimating oven temperature was more art than science. The earliest ovens were giant pits filled with hot coals or burning wood, and though technology improved over the millennia-brick or ceramic chambers eventually came into fashion-the basic concept remained the same through the beginning of the 20 th century. Join me, if you will, on a brief history of oven temperatures.įor most of human history, bakers had very little control over the heat of their ovens and hearths, and they knew it.

It’s also plain terrible advice, in many cases. More importantly, however, it gives you a false sense of how much control you have over your oven. First, as George Carlin pointed out, it’s linguistically absurd-you don’t preheat an oven, you heat it. “Preheat oven to 350 degrees.” I hate this phrase.

Gas oven vs electric oven temperature conversion