Baker’s dos, don’ts, and dozens.

So we’re back from the Bay. Back with a case (plus one) of new wine gifted to us in light of our upcoming nuptials. It was quite a clever theme for a bridal shower – bring a gift, and a bottle of wine. We made out like bandits, and we certainly are lucky to have a generous family (and some generous friends). Thanks, all.

After we got back last night and we’d unpacked every last box and tin, I decided to give the 8×4 bread pan a test drive, so I broke out the lemon poppyseed quick bread mix that I had received along with the pan. And for what seems like the 4,847th time, I screwed it up.

Why? Because of this little fella:

My Westwood oven.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t hate my Westwood. It’s a compact unit, making it a good fit for our tiny apartment. It’s very old – I’m guessing this is a model from the ’50s – so it’s got some retro chic going on. It has a nice range that has been very consistent, and I love working with gas. The stovetop area is fairly small, which makes for some crowding issues when you’ve got more than two pots on the stove.  On the whole, though, the range hasn’t really let me down.

But oh, that oven. First off, it’s the kind you have to light yourself. This means that you turn the oven on beyond the “gas on” notch on the oven dial, you light a match, you put the match in front of the gas port, and the oven lights itself. Except that with our match box, lighting matches has been an increasingly difficult activity as the match box’s strike surface has grown too oxidized to use. So now it takes me 2-3 times longer to light a match, which means that there is more and more gas roaming around the bottom of the oven by the time I get the match to the port. Will I someday blow myself up when I screw up match after match, finally managing to light the 7th one and holding it irritatedly next to the port without thinking about what I’m doing? Quite possibly. Say goodbye to Hollywood.

But that’s not even the real issue. That’s the temperature control of my oven. Let me take you through a typical oven experience in my kitchen before I figured out what was happending. Let’s say I want to roast a chicken. I light the oven without killing myself, I set the temperature to 475 degrees, just like Judy Rodgers says, and I wait.

Ten minutes later: Open the oven and check my thermometer. Only 200 degrees. Close oven door.

Five minutes later: return. 250 degrees. Feels a lot hotter, though. Oy. Go catch up on my Scary Go Round.

Five minutes later: 450 degrees. Whoa, that was fast! Well, let’s throw the chicken in there.

Fifteen minutes later: Boy, that chicken is crackling loud. Check it: 600 degrees?! What the hell?!? Check the dial: 475. Wha hoppen? The chicken is looking a little angry at all this heat. Turn down to 400.

Five minutes later: check the oven. Still 600! Turn it all the way down to 200. The chicken is seriously unhappy – it looks like it’s been cooked by a pastry chef with a blowtorch for the last twenty minutes. Charred, yet raw.

Ten minutes later: Now we’re at 550, according to the thermometer. Hooray. The chicken is black on top. Internal temp: 130. I hate my life.

I don’t know if my oven is in any way representative of what ovens acted like in the Eisenhower Era, but if it is, how the hell did anyone get anything cooked properly? There’s something wrong here. I think the problem is the calibration of how much heat is produced at certain points of the dial. Between “low” and “250” on my dial is the same temperature range that most people have set to, say, “on” to “550.” Anything above that is basically nuked. Plus the damn thing gives off so much heat, you can’t even touch the dial with your bare hand after half an hour or so. Don’t even think about touching the handle. And if you’re pulling a pan out of the oven, I’m afraid there’s a two potholder minimum. Sorry, no exceptions. Not even for you, missy.

But after many months of trial and error, error, error, I’ve finally figured out a sort-of plan for how to use the oven and not light things on fire. The secret is knowing when to turn the heat down. There’s a moment when the temperature is just about to make its jump to “blast furnace mode” where it is actually in an acceptable range, at which point you can use it if you do one of two things:

1) Wait until the oven is 50 degrees cooler on the thermometer than what you want it to be, then turn the heat down to “gas on” and put your item in. The temperature will still go up, but if you’re careful and you make a smart guess it will only go up a little bit, ensuring the safety of your food and your baking pan. Or:

2) Wait until the temperature is within 25 degrees of what you want, then open the oven door and keep it open for a good 5 minutes to let the hot air out. This stabilizes the temp enough to allow something to be cooked at a proper, even heat level. Basically, method 2 is a little more reliable and involves a little less guesswork, but it can only be done when the temperature of the apartment is sufficiently cool that keeping the oven open while it’s on is not unbearable – ie, November through March. The rest of the time, it’s back to the estimations of method 1.

For the bread I made last night, I used method 2, but I got impatient waiting for the stabilized temperature, closed the door on my bread too early, and went to reorganize the wine closet. Result? A deep dark crust, not quite black but close. The bread was good, maybe a touch on the dry side but not really a problem, but I wish that I had remembered the golden rule of my oven: Never Leave It Alone Even For A Single Second. It will ruin your day if you do. It cannot be trusted, and it will never be fixed. Ultimately this goes to the core of my problem with baking, which is that it is too much of a precise science for me. It is possible to cook with this oven, I’m sure – I just don’t quite have the fine-tuned skills to adapt to it. I always figure out a way to mess something up, and that I hate the “Here goes nothing!” moment of putting something in the oven, knowing that you cannot do a damn thing to save it at that point – only screw it up more. This is mostly my fault, I know. But the Westwood isn’t helping any.

Of course, today is the day I started my sourdough starter. How will the oven destroy this, I wonder? Will it even get the chance?