Lowering Electric Oven Temperatures While Baking

I use an oven thermometer when baking so I know what the oven temperature is at all times. I prefer a gas oven over an electric any day, but I have to get used to cooking with the electric oven that's in our apartment.

Someone on ThriftyFun submitted a post of how to bake rounded top muffins and I've been using their suggestion ever since. I place the muffin tins in a 500 degree F oven, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes or less.

With the electric oven, my whole wheat muffins were always on the dark side when they finished baking because the oven temperature didn't drop fast enough from 500 to 350 degrees F as printed in the recipe. And many times they were burned on the sides and bottoms when I removed them from the muffin tins to a cooling rack.

So just by accident the other day, I experimented with the electric stove and turned the temperature knob down to 200 degrees F. The oven temperature dropped fast from 500 to 350 degrees, which showed on the oven thermometer. Then I reset the oven knob to 350 degrees F on my stove and finished baking the muffins for 20 minutes. The results were perfect, they weren't over-baked and burnt on the sides or bottoms like they were in the past.

By Marjorie from Lewiston