SCIENCE: The Science of Time and Temperature
Time is a useful measure when cooking, but many cooks make the mistake of giving it too much weight. Our recipes include times as well as sensory cues to tell when a step in a recipe is complete.
Keep these points in mind and trust the visual cues (and your senses) for recipe success.
Times are guidelines.
Always rely on your five senses to determine if a step or recipe is completed. Does the food look like the description given? If a recipe says cook “until firm,” then touch the food. Likewise, if a recipe says cook “until fragrant,” then rely on that cue.
Why is time unreliable?
Simply put, variations in equipment and variations in ingredients will affect cooking time.
Even your oven isn't as reliable as you think.
So what should you do with this information? First, do not assume your oven is accurate, which means that you should begin checking foods well before the time suggested in recipes. Second, buy an oven thermometer. A $6 investment could dramatically improve the quality of the food that comes out of your oven. Third, if your oven runs very hot or very cool (let's say it's off by 25 degrees), you might want to spend the money to have it calibrated by a professional.
It's important to note that some variation in oven temperature is expected.
An oven does not simply heat up to the temperature set on the dial and then stay there. Don't make assumptions about your oven based on a single reading, and don't worry if any single temperature reading is 10 degrees too high or too low—that's normal. However, if your oven is always hot or always cold, and that deviation is 25 degrees or more, it's probably time to have it serviced.
