Jane, that's a perfectly sensible question. If your thermometer takes a full minute to reach its true reading — well, that's a long time. And yes, it would be better to take the bread out and put it back in since you don't want to be standing there with the oven door open (and your arm inside to boot!). If it's actually less — more in the 15 to 30-second range — then you could do what I do: open the oven door just enough to safely get your arm inside with an oven mitt; stick the thermometer probe into the side of the bread, right by the pan rim, where the hole won't show as much; and take your reading. If the reading starts to slow down at a low temperature (like, 170°F or so), then don't even bother to get the exact temperature; the bread's not done. If it looks like it's going to be close, leave it in until it settles at the final temperature. All in all, though, this hopefully won't take more than 30 seconds. BTW, when I open my oven door and close it, the temperature remains steady; if I opened it wide and left it open, yeah, it would drop. But I think that "drop 25°" advice is maybe geared towards the days of a less steady heat supply, e.g., a wood oven where the fire's gone out and just the oven itself is providing residual heat. Hope this helps — PJH

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