Bought a $20 oven thermometer after my smoke alarm became my dinner bell
My oven dial has been lying to me for probably two years and I only figured it out after the third batch of blackened cookies in one week. I grabbed a cheap oven thermometer off the shelf for about $20 and it turns out my oven runs 40 degrees hotter than what the dial says. Now I set it 40 lower and nothing comes out looking like charcoal anymore. Kind of annoyed it took me this long, but also annoyed I wasted so many cookies figuring it out. Did anyone else's oven turn out to be way off, or am I just unlucky with appliances?
The "smoke alarm became my dinner bell" line made me laugh because my friend went through the exact same thing last year. She kept burning the tops of her muffins and swore it was the recipe, then finally got one of those cheap thermometers and found out her oven was running like 50 degrees hot. She was so mad because she'd been baking for months thinking she suddenly forgot how to cook. Her fix was the same as yours, just set the dial lower and go by the thermometer instead of the number on the knob. Turns out ovens just drift over time and the dial is more of a suggestion than anything.