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I finally learned why my banana bread kept caving in the middle after 11 tries
Every loaf looked perfect on the outside but sunk into a sad crater on cooling, so I tested three different leavening combos at 350 versus 375 and it turned out my oven runs 20 degrees hot, which made the edges set before the center could rise, has anyone else chased a baking issue for that long before spotting the hardware instead of the recipe?
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craig.viola13d ago
...and honestly that whole oven calibration thing took me down a rabbit hole once with my old electric range. I spent an entire weekend convinced my sourdough starter was the problem, fed it different flours, changed hydration levels, even talked to it like a houseplant. Turns out the thermostat on the oven was just stuck and it was running 40 degrees low the whole time. My neighbor's husband is a repair guy and he came over, poked at it for five minutes, and said the sensor needed cleaning. Fixed it with a damp rag and a screwdriver, no new parts or anything. Now I trust the $15 oven thermometer I keep on the rack way more than the dial, and I check it every few months just to be safe. It's funny how we blame ourselves or the recipe first when sometimes the tools are just lying to you.
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