Drew Magary
The Toothpick Baking Test Is a Sweet-Talkin’ Crock of Sh*t
A white-hot Thanksgiving take from our politics columnist and former ‘Chopped’ champion
Happy Thanksgiving, America! Are you baking over the long weekend? You’re probably gonna bake something: cakes, cookies, the holy trinity of apple, pecan, and pumpkin pies, a whole reindeer, etc. Or, as I tend to do, you might hover in the kitchen and offer to “assist” in the baking of things, so that you might help yourself to unauthorized samples from both the mixing bowl and the adjacent refrigerator. All of my best eating on Thanksgiving is done before dinner is even served. Pretending I slaved away in the kitchen is a perfect strategy to both avoid dishes and become fat.
But if you’re a legit cook and you’re aiming to bake something on your own for you and yours tomorrow, allow me to clue you in on a little bit of Lifehacksgiving: The toothpick test is horseshit.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please consult the side of every Betty Crocker boxed mix ever sold in history. If you’re baking something, a lot of recipes will tell you that the way you test for doneness is by opening up the oven and sticking a toothpick down into the thing you are baking. If it comes out clean, your cranberry loaf…
