Do you need to preheat your oven, or is it an outdated practice?
Nearly every recipe that calls for the use of an oven tells you to preheat it. But is preheating your oven really necessary or is it a fable? Dutch journalist Chris van Zutphen found out for his book ‘Kitchen Myths’.
The practice of preheating ovens dates back to the time of wood ovens and coal furnaces; those are more difficult to get up to the desired temperature than modern ovens.
Preheating
Many cookbooks and recipes state that the average oven has to preheat for between 10 minutes to up to half an hour until all of the parts of the oven (sides, top, bottom, and back) are evenly heated. Putting your dish or cake into the oven before it’s properly preheated could lead to it not being baked evenly with one end being done while the other side is underdone. Is this true, though? Is preheating really necessary?
Old-fashioned ovens
No, it isn’t. The idea that ovens need to be preheated dates back to the time when only wood ovens and coal furnaces were available. These ovens took a very long time to get up to the right temperature and it took even longer before the heat had spread evenly throughout the entire oven. In those days, it was definitely necessary to preheat your oven. For modern ovens, though, this is no longer the case. They get up to the right temperature much quicker and are also better able to spread their heat. Not having to preheat your oven doesn’t just save you time, but it also saves a lot of energy!
Read more: Is your oven covered in baked on grease? With this trick it’ll be clean again in no time!
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Source: Libelle | Image: Pexels