Oven Thermometer

Not an exciting blog in any respect but helpful...I hope. Home baking is very much back on the agenda. Even the most fearful cooks are mustering up the courage to bake the odd cake or a batch of scones from time to time but still, there aren't enough of us doing it. I think 'fear' with baking is due to the looming issue of precision and it is true that a few grammes of butter out here or a bit of over beating there can mean the difference between a cloudy-light cake or something that resembles a shot putting discus. After a few baking disasters, most of us give up the ghost and shop for what we need rather than powering through and who can blame us?

You'll be happy to know that it's so often to do with tools and nothing to do with you at all. My own baking revelation came after I invested a couple of quid in an oven thermometer; a gadget you might like the idea of but can't really see the point because your oven temperature gauge does that for you, right? I wish. When I bought my latest oven, everything was going wrong from soggy Yorkshire puddings to cremated parsnips; sure signs that my oven was either firing on all (and then some) cylinders and burning really hot, or, not really getting up to temperature at all.

Needless to say, if your baking is a bit of a damp squib get yourself an oven thermometer. There may well be other baking hurdles but baking at the right temperature is a brilliant place to start.

Good old Lakeland! http://turl.ca/gfbrjo

Cheap as chips. This version from Nisbets will do the job perfectly well too http://turl.ca/udou