Reading China Pie Dish With Apple Lid
Afterward narrowing the field based on input from our favorite pro bakers, nosotros put nine pie dishes to the test. Equally it turned out, the best was as well the least expensive—a simple Pyrex model. Nosotros too loved two ceramic pie pans, every bit well as one made with an innovative combination of ceramic and glass. Read below for what you should look for in a pie dish and the complete results of our testing. Happy baking.
The all-time pie dishes:
- Our favorite: Pyrex Basics ix" Pie Plate, at amazon.com
- Bang-up ceramic pie dishes: Baker's Advantage Ceramic Deep Dish Pie Plate (at amazon.com), Emile Henry Modern Classics Pie Dish (at amazon.com)
- Best of both worlds: Creo SmartGlass Pie Plate, at amazon.com
In Search of the Best Pie Dish
Credit: Sarah Karnasiewicz
Making flaky, perfectly aureate pies can exist a daunting task for novice cooks and experienced bakers alike. Still, with a little patience and the right tools—starting with a sturdy pie plate—cute results are within anyone's reach. Confused by the options? Pie dishes come in a wide range of styles and materials, from flimsy disposable supermarket tins to hand-thrown stoneware plates, making it hard to know which one volition yield the best blindside for the buck. In search of an educated answer, nosotros spent 20 hours filling, crimping, and baking our manner through a lineup of some of the most commonly bachelor and widely recommended pie plates on the market. Our determination: Sometimes the simplest tools really are the best.
To gather our list of contenders and decide the near versatile, piece of cake-to-use, multi-purpose pie plate, we surveyed the preferences of some of our favorite professional person bakers, including Kate McDermott, a Seattle-based baking instructor, pie guru, and writer of the comprehensive new cookbook The Art of the Pie; Genevieve Ko, a food writer, recipe developer and culinary consultant who recently penned Better Blistering, a drove of wholesome modern twists on baking classics; and Joanne Chang, the James Beard Honor-winning pastry chef/owner of Flour Baker + Cafe in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts and the author of Flour, Flour, Too and Baking with Less Sugar. We also took to the web, consulting user reviews on Amazon and roundups on other established culinary and consumer websites.
The Pie Dishes
When picking a roster of pie plates to test, we tried to include representatives from all the major categories. Outliers aside, most pie dishes tend to be 8 ½ to 10 inches in diameter (measured from inner lip to inner lip), i ½ to 2 inches deep, and autumn generally into three material categories—metallic, drinking glass, or stoneware/ceramic—each with their ain strengths and weaknesses.
Broadly speaking, metal pie tins carry estrus rapidly and very efficiently, which guarantees a well-cooked lesser crust when making filled pies, such equally apple or rhubarb, but can lead to overbrowning and other inconsistencies when working with custard-based pies (similar pumpkin or buttermilk) whose fillings may require a longer cook time to set. Inexpensive and shatterproof, the majority of metal pie plates are fabricated of aluminum. These days many are also coated with nonstick surfaces that, while making for neat and easy slice removal, tin can be easily scratched by sharp knives and serving spatulas.
Credit: Sarah Karnasiewicz
Disposable foil pie tins may seem like a user-friendly choice if you are bringing your pie to a school potluck or other community event (or if, similar Joanne Chang, who uses them widely at her Flour bakeshops, the pies you are prepping are primarily for sale) only their flimsy construction can lead to uneven baking and provides inadequate support for most fillings. One helpful solution Kate McDermott offered: if you lot must use a disposable pan, bake it within a glass or ceramic pan—which volition aid with fifty-fifty heat distribution and add stability for handling—and remove information technology only once information technology has cooled and is fix to serve. "I in one case saw a beautiful, piping hot apple tree pie broiled in a disposable pan fold in half and slump to the floor when the baker took it out of the oven," said McDermott. "And that was a very, very sad sight."
Glass pie pans, of which the Pyrex make is near ubiquitous, are no-frills, affordable, widely bachelor, and frequently the plates that many cooks acquire on. Indeed, because their clear textile lets you see when the bottom crust is firm, browned, and nicely-baked, they tin be a boon to bakers of all experience levels. They too conduct heat slowly and evenly, allowing the pie's pastry and filling to cook at the same moderate pace (although this does also mean that they may require a few more minutes in the oven than their metallic counterparts). In recent years, consumer websites have reported some alarming stories of drinking glass baking dishes "exploding" after moving from a hot oven to counters and cooling racks (apparently a result of the manufacturers' switch from super heat-resistant borosilicate glass to the slightly more fragile material of tempered soda lime). But in our tests (and in our many previous years of baking with glass pie dishes), we never had one shatter on usa, nor did any of the experts we queried, or our friends and neighbors.
Weighty in the hand, appealingly earthy, and available in a rainbow of styles and glazes to conform any occasion and mood, pottery and ceramic pie dishes stand up out from the pack in terms of aesthetics—and are sure to win appreciative comments when yous present them at table. Similar glass dishes, ceramic pie dishes carry heat slowly and evenly, which helps yield uniformly golden crusts and thoroughly cooked fillings, fifty-fifty when making fruit pies, like apple, that require lengthy cooks to soften down. Some ceramic pans also come up with appealing and smartly-designed flourishes, such as ruffled rims that assistance guide fingers when fluting crusts, or generous handles that make transferring from oven to table a sure-fire. While they do tend to exist pricier—especially the ones made by the 3 big French makers: Emile Henry, Le Creuset and Staub—when well cared for, most ceramic pie dishes will last a lifetime and are pretty plenty that you'll want to pass them downward. Vintage pottery pie dishes can be quite cute, too, but if yous stumble on one at a flea market or estate sale, exercise circumspection: older glazes may comprise lead, and when in uncertainty, it'due south best to avert them.
The Tests
Credit: Sarah Karnasiewicz
A well-performing pie dish needs to practice a lot more than than expect expert. Namely: it should be versatile enough to yield evenly broiled, golden crusts and thoroughly-cooked fillings every fourth dimension, whether the chore at mitt is a fruit pie, savory pie, printing-in crust, custard pie, or quiche. Its size should be generous enough to accommodate an eye-catching pile of fruit when being used for rustic, deep-dish style double crust pies, but not and then capacious that the ratio of filling to crust feels skewed when making icebox pies, more delicate custard pies or quiche. Finally, from a value standpoint, a good pie dish should also be sturdy plenty to stand upward to years of heavy use.
Drawing on our personal collection of pie plates, expert recommendations, Amazon's nearly popular pans, and a few wildcard options thrown in for good measure, we began testing with a lineup of ten pans and so whittled that list down to 7 finalists that seemed to all-time stand for the range of prices, styles, and pattern options on the market. To put those contenders through their paces, we settled on a iii-part procedure, comparing the results when each pan was used to blind bake a storebought crust (using this brand), prepare Food & Wine's classic double-chaff apple pie (prepped with Food & Wine'southward all-butter pie dough), and brand the iconic Libby's pumpkin pie (using the recipe found on the back of the can).
Our Favorite Pie Dishes
Credit: Courtesy of Pyrex
Our favorite pie dish: Pyrex Basics 9" Pie Plate (bachelor at amazon.com)
In a win for value and a victory of function over form, the most inexpensive and arguably simplest pie dish we tested turned out to be our consistent favorite. Well proportioned at 1 ½ inches deep and 9 inches wide, the Pyrex Basic plate lacked the book of some of the deep dish pie plates we tried, but yet ably supported a archetype apple tree pie and perfectly independent the custardy contents of the Libby'south pumpkin pie. In both of those cases, as well every bit during the bullheaded-baking, the fabric's even estrus conduction yielded well-baked, uniformly aureate pastry layers without any weird pale spots—and considering the dish was transparent, gauging doneness was easy equally taking a peek at the sides or the bottom. Slices of pie came out of the dish cleanly, making serving bang-up and stress-free, and we never had to worry virtually scratching the durable surface with sharp knives. The dish'due south thin, unadorned lip immune for flexibililty when finishing off the crusts, and looked equally lovely whether we decorated the edges with a fork crimp or finger fluting. Another bonus, pointed out past Genevieve Ko (who as well favors glass when baking at dwelling): though not quite disposable, the low price of the Pyrex Basic dish, combined with its popularity (you can pick i up in nigh major supermarkets), means that leaving ane behind at a potluck, or gifting a pie to a host or hostess without the expectation of getting your dish back, is a relatively low-stakes cede. Finally, while some bakers might detect the no-frills design a bit blah in comparison to more than fashionable ceramic plates, nosotros like the pan's commonsensical simplicity. Or, as Ko put it: "The Pyrex dish is such a neutral backdrop that information technology doesn't distract from the beauty of the pie itself—and isn't that what should be the centerpiece?"
Credit: Courtesy of Amazon
- Baker's Advantage Ceramic Deep Dish Pie Plate (available at amazon.com)
- Emile Henry Modern Classics Pie Dish (available at amazon.com)
Going into the testing process, the Emile Henry pan was our odds-on favorite. Having used 1 at habitation for years, nosotros were always happy with its generous capacity, its consistently excellent browning and its elegant European looks—compliments nosotros heard repeated past many of the experts we surveyed, including Kate McDermott. From a practical standpoint, it won points for existence microwave, freezer, and dishwasher condom. We also liked that information technology was the but model nosotros tested specifically approved for utilise under the broiler, which, while certainly not an essential, only emphasized its versatility. Made by a family company in France from Burgundian dirt, its full-blooded was sterling, and seemed to justify what might seem a insufficiently extravagant price tag—plus, as an heirloom-grade piece of gear, it would more than than earn back its price over years of employ.
Think of the Baker's Advantage Deep Dish Pie Plate as the Emile Henry's more affordable (and near identical) American cousin—and a very proficient deal. Made in the U.s.a. from high-quality stoneware, it has the same pretty ruffled rim, colorful outer coat (though in fewer hues), and careful construction every bit its French counterpart. Indeed, weighing in at 2 lbs, xi ounces unfilled, feels even heftier in the manus. That weightiness can translate to longer cook times—considering the pan heats evenly but quite slowly, information technology is sometimes necessary to add as much every bit a ⅓-½ more oven time to recipes to reach thoroughly baked results. Merely keeping those adjustments in mind, the results using Bakery'due south Reward were anticipated and appealing: bullheaded broiled crusts turned out evenly browned and with piffling shrinkage, apple pies stood alpine and glassy gilded. While the pan takes longer to heat upward than a metal pan, for instance, information technology also takes a long time to lose all that rut, too. Case in point: After one afternoon of baking, I brought the apple pie I'd made in the Baker'south Advantage pan to share at a parent'southward association meeting at my son's school—and when nosotros sliced into information technology, everyone marveled that the soft, jammy apples were still warm.
Still, while at that place was a lot to recommend both the Emile Henry and Bakery's Advantage pans, when put through their paces alongside the Pyrex and other contenders, a few shortcomings emerged that kept them out of the pinnacle spot. Both produced deeply browned crusts without any sogginess, merely the insides of both pans were not reliably nonstick, and removing clean slices of pumpkin or apple pie without leaving bits of the bottom crust behind proved tricky. Likewise, while the generous depth of the dishes ably contained the mountain of fruit chosen for in our apple pie recipe, afterwards baking the fruit settled dramatically, causing the tall sides of the pan to leave a significant gap between the filling and the crispy pinnacle crust. Finally, the manufacturer's instructions for the Baker's Advantage dish recommend hand-washing rather than using a dishwasher for cleanup—a small note which nonetheless detracts from its practicality and convenience.
Credit: Courtesy of Amazon
Best of both worlds: Creo SmartGlass Pie Plate (available at amazon.com)
A relative newcomer to the marketplace, the Creo Smartglass Pie Plate was created with the aim of combining the best features of glass pie pans and ceramic pans—and largely succeeds in doing so. Light and pleasant in the hand, it pairs an extra-durable borosilicate glass interior with a stylish ceramic exterior in an assortment of pretty matte hues, resulting in a plate with the consistently first-class oestrus conduction of Pyrex and the fashionable, oven-to-table looks of a Le Creuset or Emile Henry. Bullheaded-baked crusts turned out aureate and shatteringly crisp and never stuck; pumpkin pies broiled up creamy and without a soggy bottom. Bottom line: if you don't heed spending an actress $10, this pan is a promising and very pretty alternative to the Pyrex basic. We'll exist keeping information technology in our rotation.
As well Considered
This nonstick metal pan is bonny, well made, and appealingly sturdy in the paw. Made from commercial-class aluminized steel to distribute oestrus quickly and evenly, we loved the manner it produced blind baked shells that were uniformly golden and lifted cleanly out of the pan without a nibble left behind. Ultimately however, we ruled information technology out as not versatile enough: when used for custardy pies, like pumpkin, the edges shrank slightly and the chaff set faster than the filling.
Staub Ceramic Pie Dish (available at amazon.com)
We loved the look of this dish, especially the pretty and practical squared-off handles stamped with the Staub name, but found that its smaller size (information technology fit entirely inside all of our top selections) made it impractical as an all-purpose pick. Likewise, while the Staub visitor made its high-quality reputation with French-fabricated cast atomic number 26 cookware, these days many of its ceramic accessories (including this one) are made in China.
U.s. Pan Bakeware Aluminized Steel Pan (available at amazon.com)
A sturdy, serviceable metal pan that might exist a great choice for high-book commercial kitchens, this dish defenseless our heart considering of its great marks on Amazon. We loved its well-crafted heft, its Made-in-the-The states pedigree, and its lifetime warrantee. But we plant that the corrugated interior was non as consistently nonstick every bit touted, making some slices difficult to remove and the pan more laborious to make clean.
Pyrex Easy Grab 9.5-inch Pie Plate (bachelor at amazon.com)
Slightly wider than our favorite glass pan and sporting a flat, frilled rim, this pie dish got ruled out because it offered no observable benefits versus the basic Pyrex model, and its wide rim felt cumbersome when shaping and filling crusts.
Camp Chef Cast Atomic number 26 Pie Pan (available at amazon.com)
We love baking cakes and breads in cast iron and the way the cloth'southward intense heat conduction yields wonderful crunchy edges and business firm, gilded crusts—so we were curious to encounter how that performance could translate to pie making. But while the pan performed ably during the making of our apple pie, its aggressive heat retentivity led united states to virtually burn our pastry during bullheaded baking, and fabricated timing the cooking of our custard filling difficult. Also, fifty-fifty if you lot desire to play effectually with cast fe baking, given that many cooks already accept a ix- or 10-inch cast iron skillet (which could do double duty as a pie plate, if desired) in their arsenal, buying this stand alone pan is probably an unnecessary expense.
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Source: https://www.foodandwine.com/cooking-techniques/baking/best-pie-dish-review
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