Warning: that $18 oven thermometer from the grocery store aisle saved my banana bread and I almost skipped it

Spencer Coleman · 2026-09-21T16:00:04.778547+00:00

I bake banana bread maybe twice a month and for a year it kept coming out dark on the bottom and raw in the middle, and I blamed my oven, my pan, everything except the actual temperature. My oven dial says 350 but I finally stuck an $18 thermometer from the grocery store aisle in there and it was really running at 390, which is why the outside cooked before the inside set. I started setting the dial down to about 315 and now the bread comes out even every time, same recipe, same pan, nothing else changed. I felt kind of dumb because I had been tweaking the recipe for months when the recipe was never the problem. The thermometer was the cheapest thing in my whole kitchen and it did more than the $60 pan I bought trying to fix it. If your bakes keep burning outside and staying wet inside, spend the $18 before you touch the recipe. What temp is your oven actually hitting when the dial says 350?

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Warning: that $18 oven thermometer from the grocery store aisle saved my banana bread and I almost skipped it | Baking Fails And Wins - Thought Shares