In old movies or cartoons, you may have seen that a wafting aroma is released when a pie is placed on a windowsill to cool. We may not be cooling pies on windowsills much anymore (who wants bugs getting into their food?), but there are still many places in your home you can put your freshly baked pie. It is important, however, to bake that pie on a pie plate in order for the crust to be flaky and to get an even bake for people to taste it.
When the ingredients are mixed correctly, a pie plate or dish will produce some of the best quiches and pies you can ever imagine. If someone has given you the task of making apple pie or pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, or if you prefer to bake a cake or a birthday pie, then you will need a pie plate.
Each family has a secret recipe for making their family pie plate. Check out our guide to the best pie plates. We’ve found the best pie plates to suit your tastes, which you might prefer for the economy, innovation, or pure old-fashioned sensibility.
You may also like:
1. Anchor Hocking Oven Basics Deep Pie Plate
Features
- Brand: Anchor Hocking
- Color: Clear
- Material: Glass
- Weight: 2.33 pounds
- Dimensions: 11.69 x 9.94 x 1.81 inches
The Basics of Oching Hocking 9.5 Founded 110 years ago in Deep Pie Pan, Lancaster, Ohio, this is a powerful and modern home cooking appliance. With the extra weight and side handles, it makes delicious cakes without complicating matters.
Affordable glass panels range from metallic options to ceramic tiles. Glass cleaning and excellent finish will prevent frequent cracking or breakage on other glass designs such as Pyrex. Glassware does not retain heat as effectively as ceramic cookware, so high-quality oven mitts and careful handling must be removed.
Even though the pan can be moved directly between the freezer, microwave, and dishwasher, the utensils will last until the temperature is adjusted. It works well with baking sheets, cakes, quiches, and other classics, but its 9.5-inch diameter makes it difficult to use for most cake recipes.
Using standard recipes, the bread will not cover the surface of this fried dish and will only reach the sidewalls and not the bread. This makes serving difficult and affects the appearance of real cakes. Plus, pre-made crusts and canned fillers are lightly cut to measure usage.
Overall, the Anchor Hocking Oven Deep Pie Pan is a proven glass pie option that allows users to see bread and enhance the shade. Even though it’s resistant to heat, safety, and temperature, it’s an excellent option for those who don’t mind experimenting a little to find the perfect proportions for even larger sizes.
2. Emile Henry Modern Pie Dish
Features
- Brand: Emile Henry
- Color: Rouge Red
- Material: Ceramic
- Weight: 2.54 pounds
- Dimensions: 10.2 x 10.2 x 2.56 inches
French making was different from the main course with cakes commonly used in bakeries, tearooms, and homes for over a hundred years. The Emily Henry plate is available in seven natural shades to match the unique design of the pot.
For pies, quiches, parmesan, eggplant clafoutis, casserole, and more, the bowl also provides heating with insulation and a non-stick coating inside. Thanks to this perfect heating process, bakers got the perfect golden yellow bread without spilling the bottom. By protecting the hard glass from the outside, the tile can be scratched. Serve without worrying about the pan.
Set the dish in the oven, on the table, in the refrigerator or freezer, in the microwave. It provides an additional safety range of 4 to 515 degrees. It is also dishwasher safe, saving you valuable cooking time.
With a depth of 1.75 inches, it’s deeper than most metal and glass options. We particularly appreciate the flute which creates the perfect crust in the crust. Individual buns are beautiful with natural colors that never go out of style. Emily Henry Cake Plates are ideal for experienced bakers who are skilled and willing to professionally invest in standard dishes.
You may also like:
3. Farberware Baker’s Advantage Ceramic Pie Dish
Features
- Brand: Farberware
- Color: Teal
- Material: Ceramic
- Weight: 3.54 pounds
- Dimensions: 10.24 x 10.24 x 2.17 inches
A beautiful pie dish like this one from Farberware Baker’s Advantage looks good enough to adorn any dining table. Ceramic bowl glazed with a charming teal blue glaze on the outside. On the inside, the glaze is a contrasting shade of white.
With its attractive fluted edges, it measures 10 inches in diameter. The interior measures about 811.2 inches in diameter. Having plenty of depth, this pie plate is perfect for deep-filled pies.
This pie dish is made of stoneware, which helps distribute heat evenly. Ceramic interior means plastic isn’t used. However, it is advised that you grease the interior before using it. In addition, you may have to persuade some of your crust to release.
Although this can be put in the freezer or oven, it won’t withstand sudden temperature changes. There are better choices if you want a pie dish that can be switched between desserts. We are happy to report that this can go into a dishwasher and come up like new. Cooks who don’t like to wash up by hand will appreciate that feature.
4. G & S Metal Products Company OvenStuff Nonstick Pie Pans
Features
- Brand: G & S Metal Products Company
- Color: Gray
- Material: Alloy Steel
- Weight: 14.1 ounces
- Dimensions: 9 x 1.75 x 9 inches
The G & S Metal Products Company is offering you not one, but two pie pans. Their diameters are both 9 inches. Accordingly, the rim measurement is 9½ inches from tip to the rim and 8½ inches from inside to outside. The diameter at the base is 7 1/8 inches. It’s a little deeper than flan pans, at 1½ inches. You can generally use most standard 9-inch recipes for 9-inch pans.
We found these to be very affordable – you’ll pay less if you buy the two sets than some of the individual pans. Even though it’s not the most attractive serving dish at the dining table, the steel construction makes it sturdy. While it’s a relatively low price point, it’s quite thick. You’ll experience even heating.
DuraGlide is the non-stick coating used here. This makes your pie slide out of the pan smoothly. Nevertheless, you cannot put it in the dishwasher. It will last longer if you hand wash it with warm, soapy water and a soft brush or sponge.
You may also like:
5. Pyrex Glass Bakeware Pie Plate
Features
- Brand: Pyrex
- Color: Clear
- Material: Glass
- Weight: 1.6 pounds
- Dimensions: 9 x 9 x 1.2 inches
Among Pyrex’s many dishes for baking, its glass pie plate is one of its most beloved items. Multifunctional glass doesn’t absorb odors, sticks to food, or scratches easily. In a preheated oven, freezer, microwave, or dishwasher, you can use dishes made from this glassware as long as you allow time for the glass to adjust to the changing temperatures.
This dish also bakes test crusts nicely golden and cooks them through without burning or turning too brown. A pumpkin pie cooked in this pie plate slightly more slowly than it did in our test, probably because glass conducts heat more slowly than metal. You will be able to keep your pie warm after it has come out of the oven since the plate retains heat well.
There are 1.2 inches of sides on the Pyrex pie plate, which is a little less than many of our other favorite pie plates. This means your crust will have more crust overhang on the edges so it can be crimped or folded in pretty decorative patterns. Deep dishes will also hold less food than shallow ones.
6. HIC Kitchen Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Perfect Pie Plate
Features
- Brand: HIC Kitchen
- Color: Rose
- Material: Ceramic
- Weight: 1 pounds
- Dimensions: 9 x 9 x 1.9 inches
Finally, beginners can also move around with a beautiful cake pan to create more toppings. Chef Rose Levy Beranbaum stands out with this simple design that won’t distort or kill your presentation.
With wide rims, a low pool, and a large, theatrical bowl, this casserole helps get the perfect bread every time. Despite the unusual edges, the cake does not come out much heavier and slides off the sticky ceramic pie plate. She made curled edges so that they had nice edges and came up with cake recipes that everyone wanted.
“The Pie and Pastry Bible”, “The Baking Bible”, “Baking Magic”, and several other titles are among Rose Levy’s many accomplishments. The combination of high performance, nice proportions, and a bit of style is the greatest addition to a wide bread.
The mold is made of high-temperature ceramic and coated with scratch-free gloss to protect long-term use. Try it with quiche recipes or baked vegetables or serve it to serve dishes and bake if you don’t have your favorite pies.
Our minor grievances didn’t end up under the board as they would shred the smooth surfaces. The smallest table size is around four pages which are smaller than the Pioneer Woman and Emily Henry table. I highly recommend baking a few cakes a year for the event and letting Rose do the decoration; you won’t be disappointed.
7. The Pioneer Woman Stoneware Pie Dish
Features
- Brand: The Pioneer Woman
- Shape: Round
- Material: Stoneware
- Weight: 2.61 pounds
- Dimensions: 12.56 x 11.06 x 2.72 inches
Pioneer Woman is a bold 23cm thick plate decorated by the award-winning author of The Pioneer Woman blog, specializing in world cuisine. The name Ree Drummond has been used in refusing to follow trends in health and nutrition. And show the food to his family. Over the years, this internal awareness has grown into a whole brand dedicated to southern flavors and culinary culture. Whether you want the decorative touch that a TV show, blog, or fan gives to a ceramic dish, this is a great dish for making beautiful cakes.
This dish is attractive and practical. Ceramic makeup resists heat like a champ and can withstand sharp scabs. With a diameter of 9 inches and a depth of 1.75 inches, it fills five to six cups for comfortable seating. A watery, orange, and cream color palette will help the dish in some cases, and turn into a cork in special cases.
Since the brand doesn’t pay attention to detail, its adhesive is particularly difficult to remove from the bottom of the pie opening. This may take some extra time before your first cake is baked. Overall, the Pioneer ladies board has little change, performs great, but comes at a steep price. It is the best gift for pastry lovers, new owners, or wedding registrars.
8. USA Pan Bakeware Aluminized Steel Pie Pan
Features
- Brand: USA Pan
- Color: Silver
- Material: Alloy Steel
- Weight: 13.3 ounces
- Dimensions: 9 x 9 x 2 inches
An aluminum pie plate that is easy to use and durable. Pie plates with 5.5-cup capacities are one of the best options for feeding bigger crowds. The corrugated bottom of the pan provides airflow between the crust and dish, resulting in Crispier, flakier crusts. This dish has ridges on the bottom, which prevent your pie from sticking while making serving it as simple as pie.
It also has an aluminized finish, meaning food won’t stick to it. Furthermore, the pan can be cleaned easily in the dishwasher and stored safely in the freezer. Because the pan is light in color, heat doesn’t absorb too quickly, so the crust cooks up golden brown and crispy while not becoming too dark. The crust is also perfectly crimped on the half-inch rim of the pan.
One of its few shortcomings is the rim. If you’re not careful, a small rim could lead to “oven-mitt-in-pie” accidents. Moreover, it means that two mitten hands are needed to pull the pie from the oven. Otherwise, we think this is the best pie plate we’ve tested.
You may also like:
Buying Guide: Best Pie Plate
Each of our picks was tested in a traditional home oven, with the aluminum pie plate and the aluminum steel pan also tested in a traditional home oven as well as a commercial convection oven. With all of our picks, all-butter pie dough was made from scratch, blind baked, and then filled with partially cooked apples before being baked with a top crust. Further, graham cracker crust was pressed into each pan, set by chilling, and filled with a key lime filling, then baked.
Professional and home bakers put forward their favorites. Pans had to have a well-baked crust and a filling that had been baked evenly in order to qualify. Listed below are companies with knowledgeable and responsive customer service representatives.
Size
A 9 to 10-inch diameter pie plate is the most common size required for most pie recipes. For most crust recipes, 9-inch diameter dishes seem to be just right, but manufacturers don’t always specify whether the rim is included in the dimensions, so we also examined some larger plates.
When the plate is deep, the plate capacity is reduced dramatically, but we found that dishes 1 to 2 inches deep could accommodate most standard pie recipes with a capacity of 4 to 6 cups. The manufacturer may refer to some plates as “deep dishes,” but we found there is no consensus on the differences between a standard-size plate and a deep-dish one. Consider the dimensions carefully. Anything two inches deep or higher is considered deep.
Our preference for a deep plate or a shallow one is based on both personal preferences and for different reasons. Shallow dishes work well for graham cracker crusts and cream pies, as well as pies with less fruit. It’s nice to have a towering slice of fruit pie on a deep-dishShallow pie plate. Generally, a shallow plate (less than an inch in depth) or a deep plate (over two inches) will work well for most types of pies; you just need to pile the fruit a little higher in a shallower plate.
Material
As all three materials can produce evenly baked pies, we tested dishes made of each. However, we excluded a few qualities within those general categories of material:
- Metal pie plates coated with a nonstick coating were avoided because we didn’t think it would be practical over the long term. If you typically cut pies in a pan, the nonstick coating will get scratched, causing it to lose its effectiveness or flake off over time.
- A cast-iron pie plate was also eliminated because it is heavy, cannot be washed in the dishwasher, and must be maintained manually. A lighter steel or aluminum option was instead chosen.
- Occasionally, you can find unglazed ceramic pie plates. Rather than trapping moisture, these biscuits are supposed to absorb it and produce a crisper crust. However, they aren’t practical for most of us because they stain easily and should be washed by hand without soap (because of the porous material).
Glass
Baking in glass pans is generally the easiest of all pan types. Serving ware that can be used in the oven and on the table, they are versatile. Nevertheless, be aware of their limited heat capabilities. It is not recommended to broil most glass dishes because they reach temperatures of around 425 degrees F.
You may also like:
Metal
Besides retaining heat best and browning crusts most efficiently, metal pie plates handle temperature changes quite well. There isn’t a chance the pans will shatter, but thin ones will warp slightly.
Shape
We found that even between plates that are the same size, there is a wide range of differences between the shapes, from the slope of the sides to the width and design of the rims. It was important to choose plates with gently sloping sides so that the crust would not slump, as well as a wide rim that was flat or slightly wavy. Unless the edge of the pan is sufficiently wide — at least 12 inches — pie crusts tend to fall out.
In addition, a wider rim gives you a better grip on the dish when you move it to and from the oven. Being relatively flat on the rim also makes it easier to create an attractive crust with flutes or other decorative features. A lightly rippled rim (which is meant to help you shape a fluted crust) still allowed for creative crust designs, but dramatically wavy rims impeded them.
Care and Maintenance
Now that we’ve talked about exploding pie plates and shattered glass, we hope you’re not freaked out. During our final round of testing, we tested the ability of each pan to go from freezer to oven (sometimes against manufacturer specifications), and there were no problems. Our recommendation cannot be explicitly endorsed if the fine print on your plate explicitly warns against such extreme temperatures fluctuations.
Additionally, you should avoid putting cold water on the hot plate or setting it on a cold surface. The crust of most pie recipes, however, suggests that you chill your pie before baking (or at least the filling). To prevent direct contact between a cold plate and the hot rack of an oven, place the cold plate on a room-temperature baking sheet before placing it in the oven. It is recommended that you use Nordic Ware’s natural aluminum commercial half sheets.
This advice applies even to plates that are intended to be freezer-to-oven safe, like the OXO and Emile Henry, where the extra stress on the dish will be minimized. As an added bonus, the baking sheet will offer an easy way to pull the plate from the oven and prevent drips from ruining the bottom of your oven (you’ll have an even easier time cleaning up afterward if you line the sheet with parchment paper).
Frequently Asked Questions
You can bake both sweet and savory pies on a pie plate. The name pie plate might make people think it’s used to serve pie, but it’s simply another name for a pie dish or pie tin.
It is helpful to lightly butter the pie plate before serving anything with a crumb crust, as it holds the crumbs together and encourages them to stay together. The only exception is a pie crust made from all butter that cannot be greased. You can also spray a non-stick vegetable oil spray on the metal pie plate to help release the first slice (and subsequent slices) of the pie.
The size of the pie slices depends on how many you want, but typically six to eight slices are cut from a 9-inch pie. In the case of a larger group but without a desire to serve smaller pieces of pie, you can either bake a larger pie or bake more than one 9-inch pie.
Whether you like apples, cherries, banana cream, or peaches, there are few desserts more satisfying than a freshly baked pie. Pie baking does not require much special equipment, but it does require a suitable pie plate.
The best pie plate may be the one you buy for the first time or replace an old model that’s seen better days, but it’s difficult to decide which to buy. These Pyrex Easy Grab Glass 9.5-Inch Pie Plates are a great all-around choice from a trusted brand.
