I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but there have been a handful of times when I grabbed the recipe box my mother passed down to me, selected one of her specialties, and bought all of the ingredients—only to realize I didn’t have the proper bakeware to actually make the dish. There was the time I forced a round pie crust into a square brownie pan, and the time I prepped everything to make my mom’s eggplant parmesan but didn’t have a large enough pan to bake it in the oven (and that’s just to name a few). But last year, when Thanksgiving was approaching and I was tasked with bringing a pie to a get-together with friends, I knew it was time to upgrade my sparse collection of oven-safe pans.
The 9-inch pan is made of thermal shock-resistant borosilicate glass that’s safe to transfer straight from the refrigerator or freezer to the oven or microwave. This makes prep work and reheating a cinch. And since the glass is clear, you can easily check in to see how your dish is baking and keep an eye out for rapidly browning crusts or other common baking pitfalls.
Best of all, it comes with a deep lid that’s tall enough to leave space between your dish and the cover. This underrated detail eliminates the need to tent plastic wrap or tin foil with toothpicks in an attempt to preserve perfectly swirled icing or flaky crust decorations. Plus, you can easily store and transport your creations in the same pan you bake them in, which really comes in handy for picnics and potluck dinners.
Buy It: $13; amazon.com
One reviewer even bought the pie plates for each of their children so they could safely share desserts with them. “I bought these for Thanksgiving for all my kids to make porch pick-ups for my pies… But my plan is for each of the kids to keep a pie plate and drop it off when they want to place Mom’s homemade pie order.”
Whether you have pies, cakes, quiches, or casseroles on the menu, this affordable lidded glass pie plate is just the thing for baking and storing your creations.
