Pizza Oven Timing for Dummies

I was in Almere today and I went full-fledged Malaysian food. I ordered off menu, asking for char kuey tiaw (fried flat noodles). The food was delicious. The chef's wife gave me three types of sauce to go with it - sambal, atjar and "ma lai can" - that's what the chef called the last sauce. It was pork fillet with chilli sauce. I figured that that I had one too many sauces already so I took just the "ma lai can" and returned the sambal and atjar, not before offering the customer beside me the sambal. He said he had enough sambal too.

I feel that it is not good to waste, so I gave the little bowl of sambal and the plastic bag of atjar (yes, it was tied up in a plastic bag for me for some strange reason) back to the chef's wife, who is also the waitress. I said that one sauce was enough for me, and pst...pst...the sambal and atjar actually gives me a tummy ache. The food itself is good but not its' sauces.

For dinner, we had quick oven food. We had pizza, chicken nuggets, curly fries and potato pieces. I was silly enough to burn the pizza because I miscalculated the temperature required. The instruction on the box said that it must be at 225'C for 12 minutes. Our new oven could not be set to 225'C. It could only go to either 220'C or the alternative and highest temperature was 240'C.

I did a fast calculation and set it at 220'C for 15 minutes, and the top of the pizza was burnt black. I had to use a pair of scissors to cut off the top layer of the pizza so that it was still edible. My deduction was that a longer time was needed to bake the pizza since the temperature was lower, and I thought a mere three minutes would be fine. After all, what could three minutes do?

Boy, I was so wrong. After my shower, I checked the oven and found a black pizza. At least I was quick enough to shower within 15 minutes and check the oven in time. There was already a burning smell.

I told hubby about my wrong calculation. He said there was a way of calculating. I said we should eat first while the food was still piping hot. Yet somehow we got into a Mathematical mood, and I took out a pen and paper and did the following and the pizza was really cold by the time we ate it :-

The instructions were                            225'C for 12 minutes
So how many minutes would it take 220'C?  
This would  mean                                  220'C       X    12 minutes
                                                          --------                              
                                                            225'C

                                                            = 11.7 minutes

At first glance, the answer of 11.7 minutes seem good. No question about miscalculation. However what I failed to see initially was pointed out by hubby. It does not make sense if a lower temperature would require a shorter time in the oven. Duh...It struck me too that there was something wrong with this calculation.

Nevertheless, not about to concede defeat in producing the right answer, I tried another way.

             If                           225'C takes 12 minutes
             Then for                1'C, how many minutes would it take?
                                          12
                                         -------       =  0.053 minutes (see how minuscule a second it is)
                                           225          
   
             Thus                    1'C                 takes  0.053 minutes
             Then                    220'C             means  220 X 0.053 minutes
                                                               = 11.7 minutes  

Yet, still I got the same answer for this different method of calculation. How could this be? Common sense would tell you that the lower the temperature, the longer the pizza has to be in the oven. But why with sound mathematical calculations, the answer is not reached? Or maybe the law of pizza in the oven timing does not use mathematical calculations?

Hmm, I still did not get it, and have not got it till today. By the way, this meal we had was over a month ago and I did not finish the post until today. Any ideas, anyone?