baking: does it come easily to you?

I tried making these at my wife's request (she saw the recipe online): https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018450-pistachio-rose-and-strawberry-buns

Did not get the dough to come out right, it didn't rise as much as it should. Still tasted OK, and the filling is very good. Two things, though — to some degree it just tastes like a fancy peanut-butter-jelly sandwich; and there is evidently no way to puree pistachios for "pistachio cream" and not have the resulting mix look kinda like poop lol.

One question, one observation.

I've seen various blogs say that tahini is an acceptable substitute for yogurt, but after a bunch of attempts, I've grown quite skeptical, because the final product (muffins, or snickerdoodles) often end up brittle and crumbly. At the very least, a simple 1-1 substitution doesn't work.

The question: I've been having trouble getting bakes that have recipes with high moisture content to cook fully through -- IIRC attempts at a carrot cake, a blueberry cake, and a hot milk cake all were underbaked in the middle, and all used (metal) 9x9 pans. Strangely enough, though, banana breads and stuff in my glass 9x5 loaf pans have come out more fully baked. I've used a toaster oven for all of these, so temperatures shouldn't be the problem (right?). Any ideas?

Leee why are you trying to susbtitute tahini for yogurt? They seem like very different substances to me.. If you need to be dairy free you could try soy or coconut or cashew yogurt?

If your bakes are underdone I'd suggest a higher temp. And a real oven (any reason you're not using a real oven?)

for baking, you’d have better luck substituting yogurt with silken tofu or applesauce.

tahini won’t really behave in the right way at all

Leee why are you trying to susbtitute tahini for yogurt?

Probably some leftover attempts at veganism, even though nowadays I end up using dairy (albeit sparingly). Yeah, I think I'll try using tofu or mashed bananas (the wonder ingredient!) instead.

I left out that my underbaked cakes are underbaked in the middle -- they're definitely cooked (sometimes overcooked) on the surface. I'm not using a gas oven because I don't feel like using it (preheating), but also now we're getting into summer.

you may have to adjust (lower) baking temp by 25 degrees … if its cooking on top but underdone in the middle it’s cooking too fast

toaster oven much smaller & tend to cook hotter than standard oven

or just, yknow, use the actual gas oven & get a better result

tbh imo i think you are making yr baking life difficult unecessarily but that is just my humble opinion <3

good advice from VG!

i just made Devil's Food Cake for the first time today, having not really known what it was before. it was like my favourite chocolate Guinness cake except fluffier and not sour. good, but think I prefer the Guinness cake maybe?

Low and slow seems to have worked better: 1:40(!) at 325, though I cranked the toaster oven back up to 350 for the last 10 minutes because I was getting impatient.