Testing baked goods for doneness is non-negotiable. The timer, on its own, cannot be trusted. The trouble with testing baked goods, however, is that there is no single indication that something is truly finished. You have to base your decision on several different factors. These are the five major ways to test for doneness to use when baking—and for the record, you’ll probably be using more than one.

The nose knows and the eyes don’t lie

Trust your senses. Color change and intensifying aromas are almost universal signals of doneness, whether you’re baking a pie, cake or custard. Baked goods are famous for filling the home with delicious smells and, as they reach doneness, those smell will suddenly bloom, or intensify. (Depending on how practiced your nose is, you might even be able to detect when burning is just a minute or two away.) If your baking has a full, intense aroma, you’ll want to take a peek, even if your timer hasn’t gone off yet.

Visual cues are helpful, too. Keep an eye out for a change of color on the edges, or wherever the batter meets the pan. If it’s a cake, or something that has a crust or dough, you should look for browning along the surface as well. You probably won’t see much drastic browning with a custard, but you will see the custard’s color become more saturated. Water will have evaporated during cooking, giving the custard a darker shade.

Look for steam

Let’s say you’re baking a fruit pie. You open the oven and find a beautifully browned crust, with the filling bubbling at the vents like magma. This isn’t just aesthetically pleasing (although it certainly is that), it’s telling you important information. The same applies to steam escaping from a pie’s center, or cracks breaking open the dome of a loaf cake.

Water boils at 212°F (depending a bit on your altitude), at which point it goes through a phase change, from liquid to gas (steam). When water in your pie filling or batter reaches its boiling point, you’ll see that vapor escape one way or another. While you should still verify with your other tests, steam erupting from the center is a really good sign of doneness—essentially all baked goods are finished by that temperature. Custards are the lone exception: if they reach 212°F, they’ll curdle. (For how to test custard, see below.)

Testing for springiness

I made a crumb cake once, and I was so confident it was finished that I didn’t test for springiness. Usually, I can tell when the center isn’t baked because it looks weak or dough-y, but the crumb crust on this one looked nicely browned and firm. And yet when I finally sliced it, the center was gummy. Lesson learned (at least for another year or two). When it comes to cakes, muffins, and other sponge-like bakes, always test for springiness, or firmness.

Most bakers are familiar with the toothpick test: The toothpick should either come out dry or—if it’s a moist recipe—with a few crumbs attached. If the toothpick snags a wad of raw batter, it’s not done, and you’ll need to keep it in the oven for a while longer.

But there are occasions where you might not want to stab the cake with a toothpick. You might not have one handy, or you may (reasonably!) object to poking a hole on aesthetic grounds. In those cases, you can gently press the center with your fingers, to see if the cake provides resistance. A finished cake might not bounce back, but it also won’t sink when you pull away. But if your finger prints leave deep marks, or you actually hear a foamy popping sound, then you’ll know that the cake needs a few more minutes.

Give custards a jiggle

Custards—along with what I’ll call egg-set desserts, like cheesecake or pumpkin pie—shouldn’t get to the point of steaming, but they offer their own signal: the jiggle. Recipes will ask you to nudge the pan and look at the center for this tell-tale movement. The edges, which should be set, won’t move, but the 2 or 3 inches in the center will wobble, then settle when you stop shaking the pan. If the center has a more fluid motion to it, it’s not ready to come out.

Take its temperature

The most definitive way to test for doneness is also, with good reason, the least common—namely, breaking out the probe thermometer. While common practice for meat, this tactic is unusual for breads, cakes, pies and custards. Skewering your baked goods with a thermometer will leave a mark, and could even potentially collapse or compress the interior crumb if it’s still raw. Probing an egg-set dessert can also lead to a crack in the surface if it’s set.

Most sponge-style cake layers are finished baking around 210°F. Breads, meanwhile, finish around 190°F, and baked custards can come out of the oven at 170°F. Cheesecake sets at a much lower temperature: 145°F. We recommend using the signals described above to discern the doneness of a given dessert, but if those aren’t giving you a clear read, the thermometer is always there to help. (And you can always obscure the hole with a bit of frosting.)

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Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Allie Chantorn Reinmann is a Digital Staff Writer for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. She’s a Thai-American chef who earned her diploma for Pastry and Baking Arts at The Institute of Culinary Education and worked professionally for over a decade honing her craft in New York City at places like Balthazar, Bien Cuit, The Chocolate Room, Billy’s Bakery and Whole Foods. Allie took her know-how from the kitchen to the internet, writing about food full-time at Lifehacker for three years and starting her own YouTube channel, ThaiNYbites. You can find her whipping up baked goods for cafés around Brooklyn, building wedding cakes and trying her hand (feet?) at marathon running. She’s working on her debut cookbook and lives in Brooklyn, NY.