How to Know How Long to Bake a Potato
- 1). Wrap the potato in tin foil and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. When reading how long to cook a baked potato, keep in mind that the preheating time does not count in the calculation.
- 2). Place additional tin foil on the oven racks to prevent making a mess.
- 3). Once the oven is preheated, place the potato on the oven rack and let bake for an hour or an hour and a half. How long the potato takes to bake varies with oven temperature, elevation and other factors.
- 4). After an hour, stick a fork through the tin foil and the potato. If the potato is done, the fork will slide in easy. If not, bake longer and check again at 10 minute intervals. It takes a while to learn just how long to bake a potato, but you will get the timing down eventually.
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