The Oven Thermometer, A Must Have

I must admit I stumbled upon the idea of an oven thermometer by unlucky necessity... We moved to a new home last year and I soon found that my dinners (and more importantly, my desserts) were frequently ending in disaster! While I have had the occasional kitchen mishap, this trend was unusual for me.  I decided that my oven must be to blame, and did a little online searching.

I was quite happy to find that these oven thermometers are QUITE inexpensive, I think I paid less than $10 for this one, and was even happier to learn that my oven was "off" by nearly 20 degrees.  (And so I was not to blame for my recent cooking catastrophes).  

I reset the oven temperature and all has been well since then.

But this led to the discovery that an oven thermometer can be a useful item to have around anyway.  I use mine ALL the time now.  I also learned that my oven "preheat timer" is very wrong.  So when it dings and tells me that my oven is preheated five minutes after I set it, I think "Aw.... that's cute"  And wait another 15 before I check to see if my oven is actually ready.

In consequence, our cakes, cookies, brownies, casseroles, breads have all arrived evenly baked and delicious.  Thank you, Oven Thermometer!