If you've watched any of our recent Lives, you may have noticed a new little gadget appearing regularly in the Panda kitchen.

A temperature probe.

I've started using one to check the internal temperature of our breads and cakes — and judging by the questions in the Panda Baking Group, quite a few of you are interested in doing the same.

It's a very simple tool, but I'm quickly discovering that it can give us some extremely useful information when baking with Panda.

Why temperature matters with Panda

Panda isn't a conventional flour.

Instead of relying on starch and gluten to create structure, Panda is a fibre-first flour. And one of the characteristics of fibre is its ability to absorb and hold a considerable amount of water.

That's why many Panda recipes can look surprisingly high in hydration compared with conventional baking.

We need that moisture to hydrate the fibre and form our dough or batter.

But, of course, once we've put all that moisture into a recipe, we also need to make sure the centre of the bake has been thoroughly baked.

And that's where a temperature probe becomes particularly useful.

The outside doesn't always tell us what's happening inside

We've always had ways of deciding whether something is baked.

We look at the colour.

We press the top.

We insert a skewer.

With bread we might tap the bottom and listen for that familiar hollow sound.

All of those clues still count.

The temperature probe doesn't replace them.

What it does is give us one more piece of information — what's happening right in the centre of the bake.

That's particularly useful with a large Panda loaf or a deep cake.

The outside can be beautifully browned and the bake can feel firm, but the very centre is the last place to finish baking.

Insert a probe into that centre and suddenly we're not relying entirely on what we can see from the outside.

What temperature am I looking for?

From my recent testing, I've started using a very simple target for Panda breads and cakes:

98°C or above.

Because Panda breads and cakes are generally high-hydration bakes, reaching an internal temperature of around 98°C+ at the centre is a very good indication that the bake has cooked thoroughly through.

And there's another useful characteristic of Panda here.

It's really, really difficult to overbake.

The amount of moisture held within these fibre-rich recipes means we have considerably more leeway than you might expect.

So if I'm checking a large loaf and the centre hasn't yet reached that temperature, I'll leave it in the oven a little longer rather than worrying that another five minutes will ruin it.

A simple Panda temperature guide

For the recipes I've been testing recently, these are the temperatures I'd currently use as a practical guide:

For food-safety-sensitive dishes such as meat and egg-based recipes, internal temperature has an additional role beyond judging texture and doneness. The UK Food Standards Agency gives equivalent time/temperature combinations for safe cooking, including 70°C for 2 minutes or 75°C for 30 seconds, so the precise safe target depends on how long the food remains at temperature.

For our Panda breads and cakes, however, 98°C+ is about achieving a properly baked centre rather than a food-safety temperature.

That's an important distinction.

What about rolls, muffins and other smaller bakes?

This is where using the probe has already taught me something.

Smaller items reach their finished internal temperature much more quickly because the heat doesn't have as far to travel to reach the centre.

I've traditionally suggested around 30 minutes for some Panda rolls and muffins.

But during recent testing I've found they're already reaching our target temperature in approximately 25 minutes.

So rather than automatically giving them another five minutes because that's what the recipe says, I can check them.

If they've developed the colour and structure I'm looking for and the centre has reached around 98°C, I know they're ready.

That's a small change, but repeated across lots of Panda recipes it could help us make our baking instructions even more accurate.

How to use a temperature probe

The important thing is to measure the centre of the bake.

For a loaf or large cake, position the tip of the probe as close to the centre as possible. That's the area we're interested in because it's generally the last part to finish baking.

Try to avoid pushing the probe so far through that it touches the baking tin. We want to measure the temperature of the food, not the hot metal surrounding it.

If you're using a wired probe like the one you've seen me using, the probe can remain in the bake with the cable running outside the oven.

An instant-read thermometer works too. Simply insert it towards the end of the expected baking time and check the centre.

Temperature doesn't replace experience

I don't want us to become completely obsessed with reaching one number.

If something reaches 98°C but looks pale and hasn't developed the crust or finish you want, leave it in the oven.

Equally, if your loaf looks beautifully browned but the centre is only reading 90°C, that's a very useful indication that it probably needs longer.

We're combining all the information available to us:

Colour. Feel. Time. Temperature.

And, increasingly, experience.

The probe simply allows us to see something that our eyes can't:

what's happening in the middle.

Another tool for understanding Panda

One of the things I enjoy most about Panda is that we're still learning.

Replacing starch with fibre changes the rules of conventional baking.

Our doughs require more moisture. They behave differently in the oven. And some of the techniques we've inherited from traditional bread and cake making don't necessarily give us all the information we need.

The temperature probe is proving to be another very simple way of understanding what's happening.

And as I use it across more recipes, we'll continue refining our baking times and recommendations.

So if you've seen me sticking a wire into a loaf during a Live and wondered what on earth I'm doing...

I'm checking whether the middle is as ready as the outside looks.

And for now, when it comes to Panda breads and cakes, there's one very useful number to remember:

98°C+