How The Weather Can Affect Your Oven When Baking

Weather can be a fickle friend when it comes to your oven, and by extension, your baking results. That chocolate chip cookie dough might be a little stickier, bake a little quicker, and look a little flatter when humidity fills the air, and temperatures are warmer. Conversely, when the temperature is cold, your oven is going to work harder to heat up and may take longer to bake or cook a recipe. You might also end up with a dry, crumbly dough when you bake that classic apple pie. Luckily, there are plenty of cooks who have come before us and offered easy fixes for these all too common problems related to the external temperature.

The good news is that once you figure out when and how your oven is affected, you can use these tricks to help you get it right. If you are using your oven on a humid day, you want to reduce the amount of liquid that the recipe calls for by 10%. You can always add that reserved liquid if the dough or batter has a funky consistency. If this is the case, then add a tablespoon at a time until it has the desired consistency. 

What do you do if the temperature is on the cold side? Bringing your ingredients to the right temperature is a proven strategy to combat fluctuations. If you encounter an unusually cool baking day, specifically for pie crusts and pastry dough, use water that is 70 degrees Fahrenheit in place of cold water. The flour can also be warmed up in the oven before you add it, if it is an exceptionally chilly day. You can also do it in the microwave. However, you do need to allow it to cool slightly before you start mixing, or it can affect the other ingredients. The flour should be about 71 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Additionally, butter can be a bit of a mystery on days when the temperature is too hot or too cold. When it is too warm, skip using that glass hack that softens butter quickly, bringing it to room temperature when you need to cream it. This could cause the butter to become too soft. You can always warm the sugar in the microwave, and when it hits the butter, it will be easier to accomplish this task. But don't forget the simple steps you can take when the weather is a baking factor. Consider preheating your oven a little longer on cold days, and on those warm days, reduce your preheat time.