“Preheat your oven to 350°F.”
If this isn't the first thing you read in a baking recipe, it's certainly near the top. Whether you're baking cake or cookies, muffins or cupcakes, the first thing you do is preheat the oven.
Or maybe not.
Tradition says that you always place baked goods in a hot oven, the better to quickly and fully activate any yeast and speed up the baking process. But what happens if you neglect to turn on the oven and just start “baking” in the cold, after the oven heats up?
I recently tested a number of recipes in two different ovens to find out, and the results were surprising and satisfying. Yes, you can absolutely skip the preheating step for many (but not all!) of your baked goods and they will still turn out great – sometimes even better.
PJ Hamel
Why start with a cold oven?
First, because it's the perfect way to eliminate those frustrating, “Damn, I forgot to turn on the oven!” moments. Slide your sheet pan onto the center rack, turn on the oven, and go.
Second, some baked goods are actually better when started in a cold oven. A longer, slower bake can result in a more controlled cookie spread, a higher rise for muffins, a fully baked center for quick breads, and, in the case of some cakes, a delicious crust caramelized.
PJ Hamel
What baked goods can you start in a cold oven?
Cake (and cupcakes), cookies, muffins, quick bread and fruit pie are the best recipes for a cold oven start. Moist, soft yeast breads (think sandwich rolls or dinner rolls) work well as long as you let them sit only about three-quarters of the way through to fully baked before placing them in the cold oven. .
I did 24 tests while writing this article and only twice was I disappointed with my start in the cold oven. Fresh Apple Cinnamon Scones it dried out and didn't rise as well. Nice Burger Bread they resisted too much and fell as they ripened. Why? User error: I let them rise completely before putting them in the cold oven.
Which baked goods really need a preheated oven? Biscuits and cookies started in a cold oven don't rise as high and are drier. And crusty bread made with “lean” dough (baguettes, ciabatta, pizza crust) must be baked hot and fast (read: preheated oven). One exception: crusty bread baked in a dutch ovenwhich gives excellent results when started in a cold oven.
PJ Hamel
Will you need to adjust the baking time if you don't preheat the oven?
Each recipe will behave slightly differently depending on the temperature required, how long the oven needs to preheat after you turn it on, and the baking time. In general, I've found that you can estimate the total baking time when starting in a cold oven by adding the amount of time it takes your oven to come up to temperature, plus the length of baking (as directed in the recipe), minus a few minutes. . Warning: If you have a newer oven whose top element gets very hot during preheat, be sure to protect the top of what you're baking with foil or place it on a lower rack until the oven comes up to temperature .
The first time you put any recipe through a cold start, keep your eye on whatever you're baking; when the test is done, mark and record the total time. This way you will understand, in the future, what adjustment this specific recipe needs when baking in your particular oven.
Cold Furnace Start: What Changes Can You Expect?
Let's review those tests I ran and find out what happened – and why.
Throw cookies are distributed more slowly and evenly. If you're having trouble with cookies falling down or sitting frustratingly like mounds or clumping together in puddles, try starting them in a cold oven. The gradually increasing heat guides the dough with a gentle hand, allowing it to spread slowly over time before it hardens.
PJ Hamel
In addition, cookies with a cracked and cracked top – think Chocolate Wrinkles – usually look more dramatic when you start in a cold oven. My theory is with more time to spread, they are able to crack more before the cookie exterior sets.
Muffins rise higher. Muffins usually rely on baking soda or baking powder for their leavening. All the drying power of baking soda is released when it comes into contact with liquid. Dual-action baking powder is activated first when combined with a liquid, then again when heated. That said, most of its rising power happens before it hits the oven heat. So, the more time these chemical dryers have to do their job before the dough gets into the heat of the oven and stops rising, the higher the muffins will rise.
PJ Hamel
Quick breads bake more evenly. We all did banana bread with a perfectly browned outer crust and pale center, right? Bringing heat to your bread gradually toasts its crust more slowly, allowing the center to cook through before the crust hardens and over-browns.
Fruit pies brown evenly and nicely, top and bottom. Skip the “start at 425°F and turn the heat down to 350°F” strategy. The two pies I tried, PEACH AND apple, were a deep golden brown, their fillings aromatic and bubbly, after 2 hours starting in a cold oven set to 350°F. The longer, slower roasting encouraged the fruit to cook through without becoming too brown.
Pastries rise higher and exhibit finer texture. Like muffins, cakes are almost always dusted with baking powder and/or baking soda. Starting in a cold oven gives them more time to work. Also, the edges of the cake don't stick as quickly when you start it in a cold oven, which allows the cake to rise higher.
PJ Hamel
But that's not all: Because the cake stays in the oven longer at a generally lower temperature, the outer crust tends to be a little thinner and more delicate, rather than thicker and tougher. from excessive redness. At the same time, it develops a wonderful caramelized aroma – beneficial!
Want to try cold oven baking? Start with the pound cake
The cold oven cake has been a Southern baking “secret” for decades. And recently, renowned Savannah pastry chef, bakery owner and author Cheryl Day has helped popularize the technique by including it in her latest book. Cheryl Day's Treasury of Southern Baking.
Cold Baked Pound Cake is also a common topic in a popular Facebook group – The Pound Cake Chicks. With over 64,000 members and many encouraging, enthusiastic posts, the group is a font of pound cake expertise. I caught up with group admin Michelle Hutson-Crawford, who gives this method an enthusiastic thumbs-up after trying it out recently.
“I am now sold that the cold oven method is the only way!” she said. “My cake was cooked perfectly, it was super moist and had a delicate texture. One noticeable difference was in the color of my cake. It came out golden brown and was even in color versus the preheat method which usually results in uneven color and darker cakes.
Want to do your own cold oven experiment? Try ours Velvet Pound Cake. In my oven, adding 8 minutes to the designated baking time gives perfect results.
Cover picture (Velvet Pound Cake) and food styling by Liz Neily.
