The Oven Mistake That's Negatively Impacting Your Baking

You might think just a quick open of the oven door to peek at a batch of chocolate chip cookies wouldn't affect your baked goods all that much. But opening it even a crack can release the heat and cause dramatic temperature drops, impacting the outcome of your bake. This goes for cakes, cookies, meats, veggies, and anything else you might cook in an oven.

Opening the oven in the middle of baking can quickly lower the temperature by at least 25 degrees. And food can change when the cooking temperature fluctuates. For poultry, like chicken or turkey, temperature changes can dry them out. Certain baked goods, such as cakes, for example, can collapse when you open the oven door as the rush of cold air stops them from rising. In general, cakes, breads, cookies, and other baked goods need constant heat to rise properly.

So, while it's tempting to check on your baked goods when they're still in the oven, be mindful of how often you're opening the door and try to rely on other trusted methods to tell if your food is ready.

Of course, the easiest way to check the doneness of food is to simply open the oven door and look inside, and maybe use the tried and true toothpick test. As in when you're baking a cake and want to poke a toothpick into the center to see if it comes out clean.

If you must open the oven to check on your bakes, be mindful of the temperature and limit your peeking. And be sure to extend your baking time by a few minutes as well to make up for the sudden drop. You want to control the heat as much as possible. Remember that ovens take about 12 to 15 minutes to preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit so, depending on your temperature, how long, and how often your oven door is open, it could take several minutes for the temperature to readjust and you should modify your cooking time accordingly. 

For baked goods, it's recommended to leave the oven door closed for three-quarters of the cooking time. If you decide that your food needs more time after checking, wait between 5 and 10 minutes before opening the oven door again to maintain constant heat. 

For meat and poultry, refrain from opening and closing the oven to baste your meat — keep the birds moist by coating them in oil or butter beforehand, and, again, keep the oven closed as much as possible.

There are ways to check on your baked goods without opening the oven door, whether it be through visual cues or thermometers. It helps to have a clean, glass oven window for this so you can see clearly, and make sure to turn your oven light on so you can see inside.

When it comes to cake, one way to test its doneness is by looking at the color and surface texture. Due to the oil and butter content, raw batter is shiny when it's not cooked, whereas cooked batter has more of a matte finish. For cookies, look for visible browning along the edges, indicating that the cookies have set and are ready. But look also at the center; like cakes, cookies should look matte and not shiny. For breads, check for a golden brown color to know it's ready. For meat, such as poultry, look for an even, golden color all around the outside, but this alone can't tell you if the meat is fully cooked and safe to eat. In most cases, using a food thermometer is your best bet.

But rather than a traditional option in which you'd need to open the oven door, there are better tools. An oven chord thermometer, for example, allows you to check food temperature without opening the oven door. A metal probe attached to a long metal chord is inserted into the food; attached on the other end is a digital screen that allows you to watch the temperature of your food from the outside. You can also get an oven thermometer with big enough numbers that you can see it through a glass panes of your oven door.