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Toaster ovens are ubiquitous occupiers of space on kitchen counters and in dorm rooms, where they typically engage in nothing more challenging than heating frozen mini-pizzas. Withal, when necessity dictates -- or when it's just too hot to apply your main oven -- even minimalist toaster ovens are capable of turning out a cake or other baked goods. You'll just demand to make a few adjustments to recoup for their anarchistic beefcake.

The Ounce of Prevention

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Set your toaster oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and allow it preheat for x minutes. Place an oven thermometer in the middle of the rack, then allow 5 minutes for the oven to recover from the lost heat.

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Annotation your oven'due south real temperature; then arrange its thermostat as needed until the oven thermometer shows the correct temperature.

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Make full the toaster oven's broiler pan with breadcrumbs or oatmeal, spreading them in one thin, even layer. Slide the pan into your toaster oven and find how the crumbs brown. If your oven has significant "hot spots" that cause some areas to brown much more than quickly than others, you'll need to exist conscious of those when you broil your cake.

Size Does Matter

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Select one or more than pans that will fit into your toaster oven. Fifty-fifty the smallest will accommodate a standard viii-inch round pan, and modernistic ovens with a curved "pizza back" will comfortably fit a 9-inch pan. Many cookware manufacturers offering a scaled-down 8-by-ten-inch block pan that will fit virtually whatsoever toaster oven.

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Compare your recipe'southward batch size to the pans that fit your toaster oven. For example, a recipe making ii standard 2-inch layers in 8-inch circular pans totals roughly 12 cups of concoction. It'southward best to make your layers thinner in a toaster oven, no more than 1 1/ii inches, which reduces the pans from 6 cups each to 4 cups. In other words, you'd bake 3 layers rather than two to use up the unabridged 12 cups.

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Measure the capacity of your pans with h2o if y'all can't find them in a pan-size chart. Fill your pan to approximately 2/3 of its depth with h2o; so cascade the h2o into a measuring cup. For case, an 8-by-10-inch rectangular pan might hold 8 cups of batter. If your recipe makes 12 cups, you'd accept enough left over for an 8-inch round every bit well.

Taking the Heat

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Preheat your oven again to 350 F, for x minutes. Grease your pan or line it with parchment, as you normally would, and fill information technology 2/3s with batter.

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Slide your pan into the toaster oven, opening the door as briefly as possible and shutting it immediately to forestall estrus loss.

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Fold a modest canvass of aluminum foil to fit the dimensions of your toaster oven, and spray one side of it with not-stick cooking spray. Midway through your layer's blistering time, when the top is fully ready, open up the oven and cover the cake loosely with the foil. Rotate the block 180 degrees as well to minimize the risk of uneven baking.

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Remove the cake when a cake-tester inserted into the middle comes out make clean, or when information technology's business firm and springy at the eye and get-go to pull away from your pan at the edges. Let the cake cool in its pan for several minutes, or equally directed in your recipe; and then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool.

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Repeat with your remaining batter, if applicable, until all the layers are baked.

Tip

If y'all don't have an oven thermometer, yous'll demand to sentinel the cake closely once information technology's in the oven. If it appears to be rising too quickly or too slowly, or browning too rapidly, adjust the thermostat upwards or downward appropriately.

A toaster oven'south heating elements are just a few inches from the surface of your concoction, so it tends to brown your cake more than rapidly than a conventional oven. Making your layers thinner counters this, helping the cake broil completely without forming a hard crust at the summit.

Chocolate cakes are particularly decumbent to scorching, and the close proximity of your toaster oven's elements increases that risk. For chocolate cakes and any others with quick-browning ingredients, it'south oft helpful to reduce the recipe's specified temperature past 25 degrees Fahrenheit.

Air-condition any unused batter, while your first layer of cake bakes. Each successive layer will enjoy slightly less leavening ability from its baking powder, and keeping the batter chilled volition minimize that loss of elevation.

Toaster-oven bakeware often comes with recipes scaled to the size of the pan, and you can notice more past prowling the Internet and the shelves of your favorite bookstores. These scaled-down pans are ideal for pocket-sized households, once you've adjusted to the quirks of toaster-oven baking.

References

Author Bio

Fred Decker is a trained chef, former restaurateur and prolific freelance writer, with a special interest in all things related to nutrient and nutrition. His work has appeared online on major sites including Livestrong.com, WorkingMother.com and the websites of the Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle; and offline in Canada'south Foodservice & Hospitality magazine and his local daily newspaper. He was educated at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the Northern Alberta Found of Engineering science.

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