Every oven with an electric display has 350 as the standard starting temperature. And so many recipes, especially baked goods, call for baking at 350. Is this arbitrary, or is there a reason for it? If arbitrary, where did it come from?
In: 18
Long story short when your cooking something what you’re really doing is causing certain chemical reactions to occur in the food. You need a high enough temperature to allow those reactions to occur, but low enough that other competing reactions which harm taste and can even cause carcinogens to form don’t occur. The 350-450 degree range is basically the sweet spot for that.
The Maillard reaction is the thing that makes cooked food taste good. Anything that browns is undergoing the Maillard reaction: meats, etc. And it turns out the sweet spot is right around 325-335 degrees. Sugars also start to caramelize at 300 or so.
So why 350? Most ovens cycle their heat source, e.g. the gas burner or electric coil. So the heat will go up and down during cooking. 350 means that you can have a sustained temperature where the reactions can take place, instead of dipping in and out.
Old recipes call for a low, medium or hot oven, with medium being most common. Those temperatures end up being about 250, 350, or 450.
The good range of temperature to cook things at was figured out before we had a numbered measurement.
So once manufactures were able to assign a number to start at, they choose the most commonly used one
[removed]
For baking stuff like cookies, 325°F is a good temp for making sure the entire cookie is crispy since the inside cooks slower, 375 -400 is better for making soft and chewier cookies since it quickly cooks the outside and leaves the inside less cooked and you want to take them out when they’re still slightly undercooked since they will continue to cook and harden after taking them out of the oven
350 is the middle ground between those two options, so that’s why recipes call for 350 for cookies atleast
It’s arbietary as in there is no real difference between 340, 350, and 360.
Its the right spot for the good chemical reactions to happen without leaving the center cold or the outside burned.
Latest Answers