Something else you may want to do is test your oven for hot spots.
The way I do this is to go buy an inexpensive loaf of sliced bread, bring the oven up to temperature and then open it and quickly lay out slices of bread all across one of the racks, front to back and side to side, leaving about an inch between slices. Close the door and let the oven run until you can start to see obvious browning through the door. Then open the door and see which slices are more brown than others, that will map where your oven's hot spots are.
If you do this at multiple rack positions (my oven has just 3 positions) you may find that the hot spots aren't in the same place at different rack positions.
I have a Maverick oven thermometer that is designed to measure average oven temperatures, not food temperatures. It hangs below the shelf rather than being stuck in a roast. (I wish it had a setting to switch between average and in-the-moment temperature.)
I've also used a Polder digital meat thermometer which measures current temperature rather than average temperature.
Anyway, what your oven measures is the temperature at the sensor, not in the middle of the oven. There are a number of factors that can contribute to non-linear readings.
There are ovens that have more than one temperature sensor. I'm reminded of the old saying that a man who has a watch knows what time it is, but a man with two watches is never sure.
I find when I check my oven dial for accuracy, generally using two digital oven thermometers plus an infrared gun, that it if it is pretty much dead on accurate at 350, it'll be off at both 300 and 400, and not necessarily in the same direction.
How is it handling hysteresis?
Hysteresis, for those who don't remember the posts on it from the King Arthur Baking Circle, is the process by which thermostats cycle the heat on and off, so that the temperature averages out to the desired temperature.
An oven will go past the desired temperature, perhaps by as much as 25 degrees, because heating elements don't instantly stop producing heat when turned off, then the temperature will drift down back through the desired temperature until it gets enough below that temperature to trigger another heating cycle.
Placement of the sensor(s) is an important factor for the oven designer, as is the developments of thermal (air) currents under various types of oven loads. Any baker who has tried to bake 3 large fully loaded cookie sheets at the same time will have experienced the way the oven load diminishes air flow to certain areas (usually the middle sheet.)
Putting a heavy item (a thermal mass) in the oven, like oven tiles or something made of iron or steel, is a way of narrowing the peaks and valleys in the hysteresis cycle, but of course that lengthens the pre-heat time because that thermal mass has to absorb heat. And that thermal mass can also impact the air flow in the oven.
Convection oven fans are designed to increase air circulation, which generally means more constant heat and faster cooking times, because the oven is more efficient at heating the cooking utensils and the food in them. It also generally speeds up the hysteresis cycle time and, if properly designed, will narrow the range between the top and bottom temperatures seen at the sensor.
I made a bunch of pizzas this week. I gave a talk on pizza which turned into a hands-on class because only about 12 people showed up. The talk was at 9 and so I was at the temple at 7:15 getting the oven on and hot. It was a Vulcan convection oven and I forgot that the doors are not insulated and re-learned that lesson the hard way. I made six pizzas with my crust and one with Jim Leahy's no-knead from "My Bread". People were eating pizza at 8:30 in the morning so maybe if I open a place here I'll make pizza for breakfast - and not breakfast pizzas but regular pizzas.
Then my family wanted pizza for dinner since I had assembled everything and they had nothing for so I made another five pizzas for us. My 13 year old ate two-and-a-half... There was a little leftover so my daughter took it to school for lunch today.
My 13 year old had a soccer team party so I made my first batch of ginger-snaps of the season (they're really more molasses cookies). I brought two boxes and the hostess took one so the kids only had one box with a couple dozen cookies which they polished off.
Last week was crazy so I fell behind on my Thanksgiving prep doing this other baking. Now I need to catch up.
You need the collagen/gelatin in bones and cartilage in order to make adequate stock (I never make chicken broth), and I've found that the 'secret ingredient' is parsnips, if I leave them out the stock is bland.
If I find hind quarters on sale, sometimes I'll brown them in the oven and make brown chicken stock, discarding the meat afterwards, but usually I use a whole chicken (without the giblets) plus any bones that I've saved up from when I debone breasts.
I wish I could find an expensive source for chicken backs, though. I"m not paying $1.99 a pound for them and the online sources all seem to be for pet food and are labeled not for human consumption. One of these days I'm going to contact the Smart Chicken folks in Tecumseh NE to see if they'll sell me a 40 pound box of chicken backs from their cut-up chicken production line. Tecumseh NE is only about a 30 minute drive from here.
I baked KAF Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. The recipe calls for a glaze; I think it's necessary for added sweetness. Nevertheless, I did not glaze the cookies. The recipe made 6 dozen, and I was baking with only one oven as the other one needed to be recalibrated. By the time I baked off the cookies, I didn't want to bother with the glaze. My husband and the two people I gave the cookies to didn't miss the glaze and enjoyed the cookies plain.
Now, both ovens need to be recalibrated. Frustrating so close to holiday baking season. I've been reading the instruction booklet, so I'm going to try to recalibrate them myself instead of relying on a repairman. I just have to wait until I garner the courage to tackle a computerized (I guess) mechanism. So all I baked were the cookies.
On Sunday, I made Town Meeting Chicken (Turkey) Pie for dinner. The recipe came from one of those e-mail newsletters that KAF had a long time ago. I've adapted it with some whole wheat pastry flour in the biscuits. For Wednesday dinner, I needed to use up some leftover potatoes and broth from the pot roast. I cooked some ground beef and added chopped carrots and mushrooms. I diced the potatoes, then added them and the broth, and some frozen peas. It's was not a gourmet dinner, but it worked. On Thursday, I roasted two pie pumpkins and pureed them in my food processor. Some is for a pumpkin pie. I froze the rest. On Friday evening. I made applesauce. Saturday was a lot of cooking for our family Thanksgiving dinner. I made Cranberry Sauce with dried cherries and cardamom, I made spiced cider. I also made mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing (stuffing in a pan), and the traditional green bean casserole. My husband roasted the turkey.
We had our family Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, so Friday, I got busy. I baked Eggnog Cakes (recipe on this site), using my two Nordic Ware Autumn Harvest mini-loaf pans. (Each pan makes 6.) I also baked a pumpkin pie--my modification of my mom's recipe. I decided to use the buttermilk crust from the KAF 200th Anniversary cookbook that I posted about this summer. (I think I put the recipe on this site.) I make a deep dish pie in an Emile Henry ceramic pie plate, so I made the double crust recipe and used 3/4 for the crust, and then I rolled out the rest and used push leaf cookie cutters. I was able to put these around the crust circumference before I blind baked it, and it turned out rather nice, with the leaves holding their shape, although I did knock one or two off. Any dough that I did not use for the crust, I rolled out as little leaf cookies, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and baked separately. I was irritated with myself for forgetting to use a large coffee filter for blind baking the crust. I had the package out, but I grabbed the foil instead, probably because I got distracted looking for my can of dried beans that I've been using for blind baking crusts for about 25 years. I finally found them, but then I'd forgotten about the coffee filters. Sigh.
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This topic was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by
BakerAunt.
S_Wirth, thanks for the all the information. I just checked KAF website for the Bakewell Cream. It seems so simple, I have to clarify: Is that all you add to the Bakewell Cream, baking soda. No salt, nothing else? If that's the baking powder, I assume you do not add any regular baking powder. Is that correct?
I saw a photo on the site for Bakewell Cream Biscuits. I never get that kind of rise out of my biscuit recipes, except Angel Biscuits. (Although there is good rise of Ina's Buttermilk Cheddar Biscuits.) I'm putting together an order for KAF Black Friday or Cyber Monday, and I'm going to have to include this product that is new to me. Thanks for the tip! This might breathe new life into my grandmother's biscuit recipe.
KAF Self-Rising Flour product label
I used my hand lens to read the Ingredients on the Self-Rising KAF bag...
LEAVENING (BAKING SODA, SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE,
MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE),
and it shows salt last...
This leavening uses baking soda and the rest of the leavening is the same as the Bakewell Cream so many of us old BCers love for baking biscuits. We had many threads about how many of us loved the Bakewell Cream. You use fresh baking soda and the Bakewell Cream to make great baking powder.
KAF Self-rising flour is here
It has baking powder and salt added to it and is low protein at 8.5%. There is also a blog post that says it is milled from a softer, southern wheat.
Here is a site on how to make your own self-rising flour. It uses all purpose flour and adds baking powder and salt. But given what KAF (and others) say about it being softer I might substitute pastry flour.
I did make my own years ago for an Australian fruit cake. I probably used bread flour but the cake actually came out fine. It was a back in the mid-90s before there were recipes for everything on the Internet. According to my Brit and Aussie friends they mostly use what we call self-rising flour.
Since I'll be working Thursday morning, I won't be cooking for Thanksgiving. We'll be going to my Mom's Senior Living Community for lunch. The food's not bad (they have a former chef from our resort in the kitchen - anger issues)and he's quite talented with what they give him. I can't get used to the fact that the restaurants here offer a la carte menus as well as a feast.
The market has fresh turkey breast on sale so I will probably
Roast one over the weekend
Many sea salts are naturally high in iodine and other trace minerals. Himalayan sea salt is said to be especially high in iodine. (There's the makings of a joke there.)
Foods other than seafood that are said to be rich in iodine include:
Navy Beans
Bananas
Strawberries
Turkey
Milk and milk products, including yogurt and cheese
Prunes
Eggs
Green Beans
Corn
Potatoes (especially baked, other forms of cooking may leach the iodine out)
However, fruits and vegetables may not be as high in iodine if not grown in iodine-rich soils.
Source: http://bembu.com/iodine-rich-foods
Mike--I have posted the recipe here:
Eggnog Cake
I first baked the recipe in November 2013, and it is extremely popular with my family and friends. I don't make my own eggnog, but I buy a lowfat organic eggnog. (I can drink some without any guilt!) I freeze eggnog every year to use in this cake, and in my adaption of the eggnog scones on the KAF website.
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This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by BakerAunt.
