Tip #1: Get To Know Your Oven
Hot spots
Most ovens have hot spots. If you’ve already used your oven a few times, you might have noticed that the cookies (or other baked goods) on one side of the baking sheet brown faster. If not, you can test this out by placing slices of bread on a baking sheet. Bake them, then write down if they browned evenly or if there is a notable difference.
The slices of bread towards the front side of my oven browned more, especially those close to the edges (pictured below). The middle slice of bread towards the back of the oven browned the least.
Knowing where the hot spots are will help you deal with them. Several recipes call for rotating the baking sheet during baking, for more even browning.
Ovens take a while to preheat, generally between 10-15 minutes. Preheating the oven is actually a very important step to ensure your baked goods are fully cooked, rise properly and have the desired texture and flavor.
Some ovens aren’t calibrated properly. This means that when you set the dial to 180°C (356°F) for example, the actual oven temperature might be 160°C (320°F). You’ll end up with underbaked goods with a strange texture even though you followed the recipe to the letter! The best way to find out if this is happening with your oven is to use an oven thermometer.
Some recipes won’t mention which oven shelf to use. This can be very confusing for baking beginners. But if it’s not specified, it’s safe to assume you should bake on the middle shelf.
Baking
When baking, don’t crowd the oven! You should leave enough space between baked goods for the air to circulate evenly.
And as tempting as it is when you’ve just started baking, you should resist the urge to open the oven door frequently! The temperature will drop quite a lot! I was skeptical until I started using an oven thermometer so I’d really recommend using one for proof! And if you absolutely must open the oven door (to rotate the pans for example), try to do it quickly. Don’t keep the oven door open.
If you are using a convection oven instead of a conventional oven, you’ll probably need to lower the temperature by about 15°C/25°F and reduce the baking time a little.
