Anna N

Not the same by any means but still tasty.

I knew I should never have clicked onto this post! I am craving a salad and yours would fit the bill to a T.

Thanks, Teo. I have had many ovens that varied by 50 or more degrees from the set temperature and learned to compensate. But this is very different. For it to drop from 450° to 325° is another order of magnitude than what I'm accustomed to. There is definitely something very wrong with this oven. I think I now have a fairly good understanding of what puff pastry needs to reach its potential thanks to your to your patient explanations. I intend to find some more puff pastry as soon as I can and attempt to cook it in one of my countertop ovens. In the end, teenagers being teenagers. I did get a text from my granddaughter saying all the extremely defective elephant ear cookies had been devoured in short order!

May I point out that Thomas Keller is tall and skinny. I am short and fat. Apart from that we only have some minor differences including fussing over tomato skins. He does. I don't.

finally! My daughter brought over a few tomatoes from her garden and I enjoyed my first BLT of the summer.

I hate them too. But the splatter screen rarely protects me. Those things wait to ambush me as soon as I lift the screen.

I suspect you are right. I am going to sleep on it tonight and then decide what I am going to do. I have two other countertop ovens so I may decide that getting the large oven repaired will have to wait until other priorities are met. I will first, of course, do a little research to see if there is an easy fix. Thanks.

Is that what it's called? Been making something similar for years but until now it has been nameless.

I am adding an addendum. Last night my granddaughter asked me to make something for a bake sale. I decided on cinnamon elephant ears. I preheated my oven at least as long as I did yesterday. Foolishly, I did not check the temperature. The elephant ears were a complete disaster. I then spent many hours trying to figure out what was happening with my oven. I am no wiser. Sometimes it reaches some temperature sometimes it's 150°F lower than it should be. Seems to be much worse if I use convection bake than if I use it without the fan. It has always been so reliable and trustworthy that I am quite devastated. I have quickly made a batch of brownies for her using my Breville Smart Oven.

Sorry I didn't see your second link. I was referring to a splatter screen that is all metal so that it tolerates the heat of the oven. Some of them have plastic handles and don't do well in the oven.

The one which was linked to by @lindag.

And you do a fine job. So fine in fact I am thinking of having you appointed Chief Instigator.

I like that style because it can also go into the oven.

Five grain fruit bread from Le Pain Quotidien. I really like this bread. It has sesame, flax, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, rolled oats and golden raisins. I am guessing they are counting the oats as the fifth seed? I think it would work just as well without the raisins if one were inclined to forgo the sweetness although I liked it. It uses a pâte fermentée.

Thanks everyone. Much better. The oven was definitely hot because I had baked bread in it before I put these in there!

Fried eggs with chorizo from Le Pain Quotidien.

Yet another iteration of a roasted pork sandwich. This time broccoli rabe (blanched and sautéed with garlic and hot pepper flakes), shaved pork roast and gruyere on a lightly toasted multigrain bun.

Teo, I have recently tested my oven temperature and it was spot on. But I have great faith in you and your advice so I could see no harm in checking it again. It does indeed get to be spot on but not when it is supposedly preheated! It takes much longer than that to reach its set temperature. So apparently part of the problem at least is that my oven needs time to reach the appropriate temperature for baking the palmiers. I have spent a good part of today researching recipes and watching YouTube videos and there is no real reason why mine should not work out perfectly. Tomorrow when it is time to put them in the oven I will wait until the thermometer tells me that it has actually reached temperature and I believe I will have much greater success. Thank you for your insight.

The oven temperature is correct. I will try a couple with the convection fan going and see if that improves the situation. Thank you. Here is the recipe I followed minus the horseradish. I suspect I rolled them much too tightly!

I was hoping to find tomatoes at a reasonable price at the supermarket but unless I was prepared to buy a whole bushel they remained an expensive proposition. Still hoping because I would love to make some more of that sauce.

Thank you and perhaps next time that will be ideal but right now I'm trying to rescue the two rolls that I do have.

I was hoping to amuse my daughter and her friends with some savory palmiers. I assembled them yesterday and they have been in the refrigerator overnight. I used store-bought puff pastry and the filling is caramelized onion, bacon and a combination of cheddar and Gruyere. I carefully cooked and drained the onion and the bacon. As you can see from the photo, I hope, there has been no expansion of the puff pastry into the usual elephant ear form that I'm accustomed to seeing when I make sweet palmiers. They were baked at 425°F for 12 mins with the tray being given a 180° turn the six minute mark. There are two rolls of these still in my refrigerator. Is there anything I can do to improve the situation? Thanks.

I thought I would combine breakfast and quality control this morning. I assembled some savory palmiers for my daughter and her friends to enjoy as an appetizer. Caramelized onions, bacon, Gruyere and cheddar. They failed the quality control check and I will be posting in the Pastry & Baking Section to see if they can be "saved". Here. Edited to add the link

Exactly the day I want to stay far far away from any of them.

This one seems to be rather shallow to suggest it as a gratin or casserole of any kind. It almost seems like a sizzle platter.