"Karen AKA Kajikit" > wrote in message
...
> On Mon, 9 Apr 2007 17:01:14 -0400, "Davlo" > wrote:
>
>>Can someone explain how you *pre* heat an oven? You either heat it up or
>>not. You don't Pre-boil a pot of water, or pre-wash some vegetables.
>>Pre-heat...sheesh, gimme a break.
>>
> Pre-heating means getting the oven hot BEFORE you put the thing you're
> baking into it, rather than putting the dish into a cold oven and
> heating it up slowly. It doesn't make a difference for a lot of things
> but cakes are very temperature-sensitive. And obviously, if you only
> want to bake something for ten minutes, it's not going to be ten
> minutes going into a cold oven or you'll wonder why it's still raw.

....and maybe burnt on the bottom, from the element or burner being full-on
during the preheat period.