As the audience of Strike it Lucky knew, a hotspot in your oven is not a good thing. Knowing were you hotspots are would be a useful thing, and I’ve come across this trick to find out.

So in this week’s shop there was a rather unusual item: cheap white sliced bread. I put this onto a couple of baking sheets and shoved in the over at 160c fan.

After five minutes, it wasn’t starting to brown.

After another five minutes, it looked the same. After 15mins it still wasn’t browning, probably not helped by me opening the door every 5 minutes… Anyway I whacked the temperature up to 180c, and after about another 15mins I finally had a result!

The left side is the top of the oven. I suspected that there was a hotspot at the back right of the oven, and this confirms it. However I didn’t realize that there front bottom is so cold. Useful to know!

For my personal records, here’s top.

And bottom.