My grandma's recipe card says 'bake until done' and I finally figured out why that drives me nuts

Terry Knight · 2026-09-29T13:00:05.792853+00:00

I pulled out my grandma's old recipe box last weekend and counted 14 cards that just say 'bake until done' or 'medium oven' with no temp or time. Back when she was baking in the 60s and 70s, ovens ran different in every house and she just knew her own by feel. The problem is everybody I know now treats those cards like gospel and then posts a sad flat cake asking what went wrong. Last Tuesday my neighbor brought over a pound cake that sunk in the middle because she set her oven to 325 and baked it 50 minutes based on some note her mom left. I finally started writing real temps on the cards in pencil, like 350 for 45 minutes, and my bakes stopped being a coin flip. How do you all handle old family recipes that skip the numbers?

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My grandma's recipe card says 'bake until done' and I finally figured out why that drives me nuts | Baking Fails And Wins - Rigidtalk