Cooking in an oven's enclosed dry heat, where the point is usually a structural change rather than a browned surface.
Technique at a glance
A compact visual model of the lesson. Use the full mechanism and success criteria below when you practice.
Concept
Cooking in an oven's enclosed dry heat, where the point is usually a structural change rather than a browned surface.
What changes
In baking, heat is setting a structure rather than cooking something already formed.
What good looks like
A skewer comes out with moist crumbs rather than wet batter — clean and dry usually means slightly overdone.
Practice counts when you cook
Reading this brief does not change your School state. Finish a real practice dish in Cook mode and log the cook; that cook is the evidence that advances the skill.
What to focus on
Mechanism
In baking, heat is setting a structure rather than cooking something already formed. Several changes happen at once and in order. Gases expand and steam forms, inflating whatever the batter or dough has trapped — most of a cake's rise happens in the first minutes and is oven spring, not leavening acting later. Starch gelatinises from around 60°C, absorbing water and swelling. Egg and gluten proteins coagulate from roughly 70°C and lock the expanded structure in place. Only above about 150°C does the surface brown. Opening the door early drops the temperature and can collapse a structure that has expanded but not yet set — that is the real reason the warning exists, not superstition. Sugar, dairy and egg all brown fast, which is why enriched doughs bake cooler than lean ones.
Success criteria
A skewer comes out with moist crumbs rather than wet batter — clean and dry usually means slightly overdone.
The centre springs back when pressed and no longer holds a dent.
Bread sounds hollow tapped underneath, and reads about 96°C internally if you would rather measure than guess.
The edges pull very slightly away from the tin, which happens as the structure sets and contracts.
Failure guards
A cake rose and then sank in the middle.
The structure expanded before the proteins set, then collapsed — from opening the door early, too much leavening, or removing it before the centre had set.
Dark crust, raw centre.
Oven too hot. Surfaces brown from 150°C, but the centre needs time at temperature, and sugar-rich batters brown long before they are cooked.
Dense and heavy with a tight crumb.
Overmixed after the flour went in, which developed gluten in something that did not want it, or leavening that was old and inert.