Birthday cake disaster!
11 Dec 2020 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneMy birthday cake - which we made a day late because I forgot on my birthday - came out actually uncooked in the center. My fault! It was the first time baking cake in the convection oven, and I set the temperature down a little; maybe that was wrong? Because the cake was in 5 minutes more than the recipe called for, so I assumed it would be done I suppose, and when the toothpick came out clean I took it out right away. (The toothpick was, I guess, damp from the batter in the middle, but it didn't have sticky crumbs on it. So I guess the problem is that it was EVEN MORE undercooked than normal for an undercooked cake.)
This isn't the worst thing ever because it still tastes good and there's no risk of salmonella in Finland, but it is very vexing. I haven't made a full-sized cake in years; I vastly prefer cupcakes or muffins, but I felt too lazy to oil the silicone muffin cups last night. I feel properly humbled by this misadventure and encouraged to stick to cupcakes in future, though. And cookies. I'm thinking extra cookies this year to make up for not having the family over as planned: we won't be making all the savory feast stuff without them there, or the marshmallow fudge, so the gingerbread will be extra important. (Too bad we didn't buy that set of vintage Soviet cookie cutters we found on ebay though; that was sweet.)
The snow has stuck to the ground for the first time this year and we still don't have winter tires on. Wax has been given a recommendation for where to buy them, but we can't go do that until the snow melts again.
This isn't the worst thing ever because it still tastes good and there's no risk of salmonella in Finland, but it is very vexing. I haven't made a full-sized cake in years; I vastly prefer cupcakes or muffins, but I felt too lazy to oil the silicone muffin cups last night. I feel properly humbled by this misadventure and encouraged to stick to cupcakes in future, though. And cookies. I'm thinking extra cookies this year to make up for not having the family over as planned: we won't be making all the savory feast stuff without them there, or the marshmallow fudge, so the gingerbread will be extra important. (Too bad we didn't buy that set of vintage Soviet cookie cutters we found on ebay though; that was sweet.)
The snow has stuck to the ground for the first time this year and we still don't have winter tires on. Wax has been given a recommendation for where to buy them, but we can't go do that until the snow melts again.
(no subject)
Date: 11 Dec 2020 09:02 pm (UTC)New ovens need an oven thermometer, you’re right that normally you set the temp 20C lower for fan-forced but first you need to establish that the thermostat on your oven is correct.
Once you figure out how your thermostat corresponds to:
A) actual temperature
B) shelf position temperature
Then you will know how to compensate/correct the dial temp to obtain the desired oven temp.
Eg: recipe states 180C, 160C fan-forced. Your oven run 20C under the dial setting so you set it to 180C!
Footnote: my friends’ oven runs 30C under the dial temp, mine runs 10C over. After staying with them for a few weeks I absolutely burned the shit out of a pizza in my own oven.
I actually take an oven thermometer with me on vacation due to this lol, takes no room in the suitcase however I have also left behind a few oven thermometers in holiday houses. Good thing they are only like $7
(no subject)
Date: 12 Dec 2020 12:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12 Dec 2020 01:17 pm (UTC)But much better than the wood stove I had growing up that cooked differently every single time 😂