Oven temperatures decoded — because a burnt cake taught me this lesson.
| °C | °F |
|---|---|
| 0 | 32 |
| 10 | 50 |
| 20 | 68 |
| 25 | 77 |
| 100 | 212 |
| 150 | 302 |
| 175 | 347 |
| 180 | 356 |
| 200 | 392 |
| 220 | 428 |
| 250 | 482 |
I burned an entire Victoria sponge the first time I tried to follow an American recipe on a UK oven. The recipe said 180°C; I misread the conversion chart and set my oven to 380°F instead of 356°F. That 24°F — or 13°C — error was enough to burn the edges while leaving the centre raw. The cake was binned.
Temperature conversion is unlike weight or volume conversion: it uses an offset formula, not just a multiplication factor. You cannot simply multiply Celsius by a number — you must apply °F = (°C × 9/5) + 32. The "+32" accounts for the difference between the two scales zero points, and forgetting it is the most common source of mental math errors.
Unlike grams-to-cups, temperature conversions are exact and ingredient-independent. 180°C is always 356°F, whether you are baking bread, roasting vegetables, or melting chocolate. No density tables required.
Temperature conversions use an offset formula, not just a multiplier — because the zero points of Celsius and Fahrenheit are defined differently. This makes temperature math slightly more involved than weight or volume conversions, but the result is always mathematically exact.
Use this whenever you follow an American recipe (almost always in °F) on a UK or European oven labelled in °C, or when converting historical or scientific temperature references. Essential for baking, roasting, and candy-making.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit set 32°F as the freezing point of water to avoid negative numbers in everyday European winter weather — a very practical motivation. Anders Celsius originally set 0 as boiling and 100 as freezing; his scale was inverted after his death by others who found it more intuitive!