Home ovens lie. A wall oven might be twenty five degrees hotter than the dial says, a budget range fifty degrees cooler. The thermostat is calibrated at the factory, then it drifts for fifteen years before anyone checks. Most cooks accept the lie and adjust by feel.

A twenty dollar oven thermometer fixes everything. Hang it from a middle rack, preheat for fifteen minutes, look. If the dial says 350 and the thermometer says 320, your oven runs thirty degrees low. Adjust accordingly for every recipe forever.

The same goes for hot spots. Rotate trays halfway through a bake. Bake cookies on parchment, not bare metal, to even out the heat from the bottom. These small habits move you from hoping a recipe works to knowing it will. The cookies are better, the bread is better and the holiday roast finally stops drying out.

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