Oven thermometer - do they do the job?

[maggiethecat]

Oven in new house seems not to be working properly and I think I should get a thermometer before I ruin the xmas cake! Anyone use one and does it do the business?

yes I've used one - in fact, I used one for 6 months cos the thermometer on the oven was broken and the only way I could control it was to read the thermometer.

Cost about £80 to fix it, if that helps. Call out and spare part.

I've got this one from Lakeland which does the job. The numbers on our ancient (inherited with the house) cooker have rubbed off so this was the cheaper alternative to replacing the whole cooker!

I use one all the time for sensitive things where temperature matters (like cakes) and because I suspected my oven was running hotter than it said on the dial (it was too!)

Very useful. You need to replace them every so often as they get browner and browner as time goes on, but they are cheap.

Read the Lakeland thermometer reviews which were very mixed but they raised an interesting point of whether you can be assured that readings (of any thermometer) are accurate. Will still go ahead and get one though.