Baking with a wood-burning cookstove -- problem

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I have a 3-yr-old Heartland Sweetheart woodstove and I am having problems baking cakes, muffins, etc in the oven (other oven cooking works fine). The tops of things brown much too fast and the insides don't cook enough. Heartlands gave me a little oven thermometer to put inside the oven when I installed the stove but the temperatures it displays seem to have no relationship with what happens to the food! (The thermometer is accurate, we tested it against the electric stove.) I'm burning hard maple.

I've asked Heartlands for advice but they haven't responded, though they were very helpful with "start-up" questions earlier. I'm an experienced cood and baker and used a coal-burning stove for 10 years in Scotland and could bake ANYTHING on it -- so this is driving me crazy.

Any advice? What am I doing wrong?

-- Joanna MacDonald (fjdy4@cs.com), March 10, 2002

Answers

After your bread, cake, etc has begun to bake, try putting aluminum foil loosely over the top of your bread (cakes etc.) folding it under the rim of the pan but not touching the batter or dough. Also move the pans to various locations in the oven while baking. I usually have to move my bread about three times.

-- Scotsirish (notreal@anywhere.net), March 10, 2002.

Obviously they're getting too much heat too fast, and you may have to lower the heat and let them cook slower - despite what the recipes say. However, since hot air rises, also try putting them lower in the oven.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), March 10, 2002.

The temperature is too high, no matter what a thermometer is telling you. Every stove is different, even electric stoves differ from each other. Lower the temp, and experiment with different heights of shelf. I found that in some stoves, the shelf needs to be higher, just to get tops to brown, while some stoves require the bread to be very low, as the heat inside the oven was much higher at the top than at the bottom.

I have never had the privilege of baking in a wood stove, but I am wondering something here. If you are using the burners right over the oven, could that heat the top of the oven more than it would be heated otherwise? Just a question.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), March 10, 2002.


Joanna, Don is right. To much heat to fast, use some greener wood! And like he said put them in the bottom, and to the front of the oven also. There is always the old stand by of putting foil on top, when you notice it browning to quickly. I have an old monarch, but I have to rotate my items because the back & one side is alot hotter. I don't know alot about the newer stoves. I have heard they cook uneven due to they are airtight and burn at a higher temp., maybe open the draft alot more...best to ya.

-- Suzanne (weir@frontiernet.net), March 10, 2002.

Thank you all for your advice! The aluminum foil seems to do the trick!

-- Joanna MacDonald (fjdy4@cs.com), March 12, 2002.


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