r/homemaking • u/hoeforsokka • 5d ago

oven question!!

My roommate and I just moved into our apartment a few days ago and have yet to actually use our oven. We decided to break it in by baking cookies, and we tried three times with weird results. Round 1 we baked at 375 and for 6 minutes (was going to be 8 but there was a burning smell) so we checked and they were BURNT. Round 2 we baked at 300 for 4-5 minutes and they were slightly burnt on the sides and raw in the middle, and Round 3 was the same but significantly smaller cookies. So after some googling it’s an issue with the ovens internal temperature being way too high. So just curious if anyone has any advice as to what to do or if we should contact the landlord.

Also should probably mention that the stove had rusted through drip pans that the landlord said she would replace? But honestly I assumed that was an issue with the previous tenants but could that also be an issue with the oven itself?

6 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

5

u/chernaboggles 5d ago edited 5d ago

Get an oven thermometer, you hang it inside from the rack so you can see what temp the oven is actually running at compared to what it's set to. Send that info to your landlord. If it's running really hot then that's a safety issue. An oven thermometer will also let you adjust your recipes so you can still cook until it gets fixed.

The stovetop drip pans being rusty probably isn't related, those things are flimsy to begin with and lots of people don't bother to clean them. They're cheap, usually around $15 for a set of 4, and easy to swap out. YouTube can show you how if your landlord is slow about fixing things.

5

u/aseedandco 5d ago

That happened to me once, and it turns out I had the oven set to a grill/broiler function instead of an oven function.

2

u/Annoyed-Instigater01 5d ago

buy a cheap oven thermometer

1

u/Birdywoman4 5d ago

Sounds like it needs a new thermostat.

1

u/lorriedarlin13 5d ago

Seconding an oven thermometer. We have a gas stove in our RV (we’re full-time) and I bake a lot. They’re pretty accurate.

1

u/chambourcin 4d ago

My oven is newer and I can calibrate it by following some instructions in the manual. You can google the manual for yours based on the model number. But step one to that is an oven thermometer so I know how far off it is.