Raise your hand if you’ve ever followed a recipe to a T and ended up with a dish that was either incredibly overdone or woefully underdone. I’ve certainly fallen victim to believing the timer to be an absolute truth. But it’s time to start treating time on recipes as general guidelines rather than strict rules (see what I did there?).
I’m sure you’ve heard it before: every oven is different. So very different. Some are old, some are new, some are convection, some are standard—the list goes on and on. Sally could bake her cookies to golden perfection in 8 minutes, while Jan’s cookies take a solid 12 minutes. Different ingredients also yield different results, adding yet another variable in cook time.
To combat this whole timing conundrum, checking and testing are much better tools. Knowing what to look for and when to pull from the oven can save you from ruining the hard work you put into making your dish delicious.
Some general things to look out for:
Cookies: Look for the edges to begin turning lightly golden. The centers should still be soft but once the edges start to look set up, pull them from the oven and let them continue to set on the counter.
Meat: Oven temperatures and varying weights of meat can cause very fickle cook times. The best and most reliable way to take the guess work out of cooking meat is to use a meat thermometer to tell you exactly when you’ve reached your desired temperature.
Breads and other Bakes Goods: Breads and baked goods have a way of filling your home with the most intoxicating aroma when they’re almost finished baking. They will also turn a beautiful golden color. No one wants to eat pale bread or pastries, so if it still looks a little colorless, leave it in a few minutes longer.
Roasted Vegetables: When roasting vegetables (or roasting anything, really) color = flavor. Look for your vegetables to get a nice color on them, some golds, even some charring is lovely. You can also test their doneness with a fork. If the fork goes in easily with still a little resistance, they are ready to come out.
