cook
You only need to preheat the oven for these dishes
The phrase “preheat up to 200 degrees” appears in almost every recipe. But is this necessary or does preheating waste energy unnecessarily?
published
What foods require preheating in the oven and which foods can you omit?
Getty Images/iStockphoto
It doesn’t matter if you are Throw frozen pizza into the ovenAnd Bake your own bread Or preparing a roast for a big family dinner: Most recipes start by asking you to preheat the oven to a certain temperature. But is this really necessary? Or is this just a common myth?
Ready-to-eat food manufacturers need preheating for good reason: Different oven models take different amounts of time to heat up, sometimes as much as 20 minutes. Preheating is necessary so that manufacturers can determine the baking time as accurately and uniformly as possible for everyone.
Preheat the yeast
But there are other reasons to turn on the oven at the right time: Some foods need to increase the heat in order to bake properly. This applies, for example, to muffins and certain types of bread, which need the highest possible temperature as quickly as possible—either to stabilize it or to activate the yeast so it can rise.
There’s no wiggle room here: When making pizza, the oven must be preheated.
Unsplash / Stefan C. Asafti
Other foods, such as pizza and almost anything made with puff pastry, benefit from the strong, instantaneous bottom heat. This is necessary to achieve the desired crunch. If you want pizza (frozen or homemade) in… A cold stove risks having damp and slick floors.
Preheat for food safety
Another reason for preheating is the so-called danger zone, that is, the temperature range in which bacteria in your food can multiply well. The danger zone is approximately between sixty-four degrees – everything below and above is considered safe food.
If you put your food in a preheated oven directly from the refrigerator or after preparing it on the countertop, it will spend less time in this dangerous area. So less time for bacteria to potentially multiply.
How long can you save on preheating?
There are some dishes and foods that you can do without preheating. This includes, for example, everything that should not form a crust or form a crust only after a long period of baking: casseroles and gratins, for example. But also baked rolls and dishes made from shortcrust pastry actually tolerate a cold start quite well.
You can also put foods that should form a crust after a long baking time in a cold oven.
Unsplash / Alex L
By the way, if you want to save energy despite the preheating, it’s worth taking the baking sheet out of the oven in advance. This allows the air to circulate better in the oven and heat up faster.
“Tv expert. Hardcore creator. Extreme music fan. Lifelong twitter geek. Certified travel enthusiast. Baconaholic. Pop culture nerd. Reader. Freelance student.”
More Stories
That general meeting was 2024
Mercedes Works Council Chairman: American colleagues must vote in favor of the union
Customer is upset about aluminum curd caps