September 10, 2014 - 6:09am
Rotating loaves in the oven
I have a new oven that I'm still getting used to. I use a Peter Reinhart recipe that calls for turning the bread pans 180 degrees half way through the baking time. This worked fine in my old oven, but the new one seems to lose a LOT of heat during the turning process, causing the bread to fall in the center. How important is turning the pans? Can I just ignore that instruction?
Thanks for any advice.
Share
I think it depends on your Oven.
In my old Oven I had to turn the bread or one side would have been MUCH browner than the other.
In the new Oven I do not at all need to turn the bread and it brown evenly.
Same recipe, same temperature...
For me i turn 5 minutes after venting if using steam. That is usually 20 minutes of a 35-40 min bake. This is primarily because I use a stone and a cast iron pan under the stone. Because of this style setup the outside edges start to darken first.
On a non steam bread, peters sandwich loaf for instance. I bake at 375 for 15, turn and drop to 350 to finish the bake.
First, try it and see what happens. If one side burns or overly browns and/or one side is undercooked when the other side is done, you need to rotate the loaves.
If the oven has a fan/convection setting, this may be used as well and could eliminate the uneven heating causing the above. Give that a go too.
If you can't get even cooking without turning and without a fan, consider adding some cast iron in the oven to help keep the oven evenly heated when you open the door.
Watch the bread and if it starts to become overly dark, turn it. Or just wait until about 2/3 of the way through the bake and turn then.
Jeff
Perhaps wait a bit longer before turning them, by which time the structure of the loaves should be stronger and more able to withstand the sudden drop in temperature.
Thanks for all the wonderful advice - I can't wait to try it.
Since first posting I have discovered that my new oven keeps VERY precise temperatures in its "convection bake" mode. So I think I will try that first (thank you David Esq for that clue.).