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Convection Oven Cookies

What’s the advantage to baking in a convection oven?

What’s the advantage to baking in a convection oven?

Most ovens heat from the bottom when set to “Bake.” Cookies bake according to their orientation to the heat source, so if you are baking two sheets of cookies at a time (which is standard), they will brown unevenly. To prevent that, recipes often suggest switching and rotating the sheets halfway through. That’s unnecessary when you bake on a convection setting; a fan (or fans) in the back of the oven circulates the hot air, and this air distribution promotes even cooking in all parts of the oven.

But while many modern ovens are equipped with a convection feature, most recipes have been developed for the standard baking cycle. We tried baking ordinary recipes in a convection oven. We baked shortbread rounds at 400 degrees and sugar cookies at 375 degrees. Even with two trays in the oven at once, all the cookies browned evenly, but they overbrowned long before the recipes’ suggested baking times. We found that if we reduced the time slightly and the temperature by 25 degrees, the convection oven produced two sheets of evenly baked cookies without our needing to rotate the sheets.

UNEVENLY BAKED

UNEVENLY BAKED: Rotate the sheets in an ordinary oven or your cookies will brown irregularly.

EVEN, HANDS-OFF BROWNING

EVEN, HANDS-OFF BROWNING: Convection ovens require no babysitting. 

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