# Celsius users: What are the 'basic' baking temperatures in your recipes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 3, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660 "2012-02-03T17:06:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/1 "2012-02-03T17:06:40Z")
For example, in America you bake most cakes and cookies at 350 degrees F, some things go in a ‘slow’ over at 200 or 50 degrees F, and a small number of things might bake at 400 degrees. What are your equivalents? Note: I am not asking for a mathematical conversion of those numbers, I can do that, I’m asking if you had, say, a cake recipe printed in a magazine, what would they say to set your oven to? ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/2 "2012-02-03T17:51:21Z")
170-225. 200 is my “basic basic”. Small breads like buns, muffins, scones etc. go in at 225. Sponge cake at 170. Ordinary bread at 200. Thin-crust pizza at max, which normally is about 275. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/3 "2012-02-03T17:54:01Z")
Baking is baking. Other than making a possible change for higher elevations (or is that flour?), a 350_F oven is 180_C. When I lived in Australia and baked, often the recipes were in Celsius. Many times both Celsius and Fahrenheit were stated. If you are missing one and need the other you just convert. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/4 "2012-02-03T18:11:15Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > For example, in America you bake most cakes and cookies at 350 degrees F, some things go in a ‘slow’ over at 200 or 50 degrees F, and a small number of things might bake at 400 degrees. > > What are your equivalents? Regulo 4, a half, and 6. 😛 [See here](http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_kitchen.htm). (Regulo = “Gas mark”) ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/5 "2012-02-03T18:14:29Z")
The UK also uses Gas Mark, but everything I can recall also gives temperatures in Fahrenheit and Celcius. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/6 "2012-02-03T18:53:26Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Regulo 4, a half, and 6. 😛 > > [See here](http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_kitchen.htm). > > (Regulo = “Gas mark”) I have always wondered about the set gas to 7 instructions. Is this a thermostat setting or is it only setting the flow rate of gas to the burner? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/7 "2012-02-03T18:54:21Z")
Most of the baking and roasting recipes I’ve seen in Spain give it as those gas marks, they’ll say “set your oven at 3” rather than giving a temp. Nowadays that ovens are starting to get the marks as temps, we’re also starting to get recipes in temps. My oven’s highest setting is 225ºC, most of my roasting recipes (I don’t bake) would go at 180-200ºC. The setting varies not only by recipe, but also depending on whether you’re using an open pan, a cocotte, a pan tented over with aluminum foil, etc. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/8 "2012-02-03T19:08:02Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > I have always wondered about the set gas to 7 instructions. Is this a thermostat setting or is it only setting the flow rate of gas to the burner? Thermostat. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/9 "2012-02-03T19:19:07Z")
This is one of those things that Canadians never bothered to change, it seems. Every oven I’ve ever had was set in Fahrenheit, though there’s a button I could use to change it to Celsius. People are measured in feet and inches, weighed in pounds. Meat and produce is often weighed in pounds. Pools temperatures are more commonly in Fahrenheit. We really have a weird hybrid system around here. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/10 "2012-02-03T19:24:51Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > This is one of those things that Canadians never bothered to change, it seems. Every oven I’ve ever had was set in Fahrenheit, though there’s a button I could use to change it to Celsius. > > People are measured in feet and inches, weighed in pounds. Meat and produce is often weighed in pounds. Pools temperatures are more commonly in Fahrenheit. > > We really have a weird hybrid system around here. This. \*(9/5)+32 ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/11 "2012-02-03T22:40:22Z")
Okay, thanks for the answers. (I’d come across lines about ‘set oven to 3’ in books and never was sure what that meant.) ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/12 "2012-02-03T23:08:43Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > When I lived in Australia and baked, often the recipes were in Celsius. Many times both Celsius and Fahrenheit were stated. The only recipes you’ll find in Australia that don’t give temps in Celsius, are not from here. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/13 "2012-02-03T23:13:31Z")
If you are dealing with temperatures in Celsius, it may be useful to note that at baking temperatures, the conversion is just x2 (or x1/2 the other way) to within a close enough approximation for recipes. 160C = 320F, exactly correct. 225C ~ 450F, not too far off 437F (and about as inaccurate as this method gets). Going the other way: 400F ~ 200C, pretty close to 204C. 250F ~ 125C, not far from 121C. In case it’s not obvious why, this is because the additive offset of 32 degrees is equal to the difference between tempC_2 and tempC_9/5 [= 0.1 of tempF] at tempF = 320, and pretty close for temperatures near that. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/14 "2012-02-03T23:14:19Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > The only recipes you’ll find in Australia that don’t give temps in Celsius, are not from here. Or they’re from old cooking books, published around the time we converted. I still have my mother’s Commonsense Cookery Book which she used in the early '40s which was fahrenheit only. My own (from 1966) has both. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/15 "2012-02-05T06:23:17Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > This. \*(9/5)+32 But that’s a pain, doing the conversion. Much easier (and better, if you want to learn to think in Celsius) is just to learn a half dozen temps. Then you can pretty much interpolate from there: [ul] [li] 200°C is baking in a hot oven[/li][li] 100°C is boiling[/li][li] 37.5°C is normal body temp[/li][li] 20°C is room temp[/li][li] 0°C is freezing[/li][li] -40°C is forty below in either system, too damn cold![/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2012, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celsius-users-what-are-the-basic-baking-temperatures-in-your-recipes/611660/16 "2012-02-05T08:10:00Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > -40°C is forty below in either system, too damn cold! Or, depending on your tastes, -40 is springtime in Alaska.