What is a “Slow Oven”?

So many of the vintage cookbooks and recipes I’ve been finding call for a dish to be baked in a “slow oven” or a “moderate oven”. While it makes sense to me that the description is relative to the heat an oven is putting out, I didn’t know how to convert that to my modern oven.

After some investigation, I found a nice chart printed on the inside of a vintage cookbook from the 1970s. Apparently, the editor of the cookbook thought this information would be useful to cooks. I agree!

While I found it extremely useful, I’ll admit that I wondered why more cookbooks didn’t have this information in them. Then I realized, it’s a matter of timing and cultural practices.

See, many cooks in the 1970s were using recipes that had been handed down from the 1930s and 1950s. During those times, ovens didn’t necessarily have thermostats and gauges to set the baking temperatures. In fact, many cooks were still working over wood burning stoves during the 1930s and 1950s.

It was quite common in the 1970s to modify a recipe from the old instructions to the new and modern instructions. In today’s cooking, we would never consider giving vague instructions like “very hot” oven. Instead we expect and are accustomed to seeing a temperature setting in Fahrenheit degrees, or at the very least, a gas mark setting.

I’ve created a graphic that will help you translate the old fashioned oven heats to modern temperature settings. This information was taken directly from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book printed in 1976.

How to Convert Baking Temperatures

After looking at the chart, it seems simple enough to convert the old fashioned description of “moderate oven” to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Very Slow Oven is set to the range 250 – 275.
Slow Oven is in the range 300 – 325.
Moderate Oven is heated between 350 – 375.
A Hot Oven is 400 – 425.
Very Hot Oven is between 450 – 475.
Extremely Hot Oven is heated to 500 – 525.

These temperatures are all Fahrenheit.

Of course, if you are cooking with a wood burning stove, you’ll want to find an oven thermometer to help you gauge the temperatures. Or you’ll want to see if you can judge a Moderate vs. Hot oven and add more wood when necessary.

Have you ever baked using wood heat?

Interested in one of the books pictured above? You can purchase on Amazon here.