This will be a much shorter writeup than my pots and pans article. Mostly because we don’t need to get much into the “why” of pans. Most recipes call for the kind of pan they need and if they don’t, it’s usually pretty obvious what you need to use. What they don’t tend to talk about is what material to use or why it might matter. We’ll talk about some of those edge cases here. First we’ll discuss how materials act in your oven and then we’ll talk about baking trays then lastly pizza stones vs cast iron.
Ovenware 101: Materials:
Ovenware comes in three common materials. Glass, Stainless Steel and Silicon. Lets take a quick look into the pros and cons:
GLASS:
+Heat Retention: Once glass heats up, it holds that heat well. This will result in a hotter direct cooking surface that will result in crisper, more golden crusts.
+Less Stick: Glass has a pretty smooth surface which means food is less likely to stick to it
+Easy to clean: Glass is pretty durable when it comes to how you clean it, so you can get pretty aggressive without damaging it.
-Max Temp: Most glass bakeware, yes even your favorite brand, is usually only oven safe for between 350-425 degrees Fahrenheit. This is fine for MOST baking applications, but not all. Definitely not broiler safe.
-Heavy: Glass is dense, brittle and heavy. There’s no two ways around it. For this reason glass tends to be found in only smallish baking trays in simple shapes. You won’t be finding many glass baking sheets or bundt pans for instance.
Best Use: Casserole dishes or loaf pans. For cooking anything saucy or anything you want a nice crust to. Pies, breads, cobblers and obvious casserole come to mind.
METAL:
+Conductivity: Most metal conducts heat relatively well and will result in quicker baking times and results in crisp browning, much like glass will.
+Durable: Treat a metal baking tray right and it will last nearly forever!
+Lightweight yet sturdy: This is the material of choice for any weird shapes.
-May rust: MOST modern baking pans are stainless, but not all. Read the cleaning instructions carefully.
-Get what you pay for: Some cheaper metal baking pans are made with little more than 20 gauge sheet metal with bad welds. These tend to be little better than disposable aluminum pans.
-Sticky: On this list, this is easily the most likely to get food stuck to it.
Best Use: Baking sheets or cakes pans that require that direct heat, like a souffle or an angel food cake. Brownies also come out more fudgy and less cakey in metal pans to my experience.
SILICON:
+Non-stick: This is usually the primary selling point of silicon. It’s a bad conductor of heat, this is also a bad thing, read below for more, but it also won’t get so hot that proteins will bind to the material.
+Super lightweight and flexible: This stuff is flexible, soft and lightweight. This is both good and bad, but makes it easy to use, store and clean! Added bonus the flexibility makes it easy to pop loose what DOES stick.
+Dishwasher safe: Enough said.
-Bad heat retention: I told you we’d get back to this. It’s nearly impossible to get a golden brown bottom out of a silicon baking mold. Many recipes that require crustiness will have you remove the item from the baking vessel for the last few minutes to firm up the surface that was in contact with the silicon.
Best Use: Specialty bakes. Things that have complicated shapes that you want to release cleanly but don’t want a surface crustiness. Works great for cupcakes, decorative cakes, wet, sticky breads or soft sandwich breads.
STONE:
+Great heat retention: This will result in a crispy bottom every time.
+Cheap: Okay, this is….wrong. Many “baking stones” you’ll find in stores are horribly expensive. They’re also a gimmick. Buy a terracotta tile from Home Depot. Boom. Done.
+No edges: This is also not really a boon, but for pressing out a pizza crust, this is the ONE major advantage of a stone over a Cast Iron skillet in my opinion, so I decided to list it here. More on this later.
-Sticky: You USUALLY don’t have a problem with things sticking to a stone because if it’s up to temp properly any of the microscopic bonds forming between baking food’s proteins and the stone will PROBABLY burn away, but if your stone isn’t hot enough, this can be a huge problem.
-Brittle: Don’t drop these. They’ll crack or break.
Best uses: Flat stones, usually called pizza stones. Great for the eponymous pizza or for doing certain kinds of crusty bread.
CAST IRON:
+Can be non stick: Still worth oiling your pans, but if well cared for will be non stick
+Great heat retention: For crusts you want to be extra crispy or deeply golden brown. Great for corn bread, pizza crust, etc.
+Doubles as a stove top pan
-Heavy: Cast iron is heavy, plain and simple. Don’t drop it on your toe.
-Requires some care: I will be doing a bit of a writeup on this soon, but Cast Iron does require a bit of extra care when cleaning and storing.
Best Uses: Baking in a pot or skillet! Cast Iron Corn Bread will have an amazing crust and you don’t need a pizza stone if you have a large enough cast iron griddle or skillet!
Now lets talk about the kinds of baking trays.
Baking sheets come in many sizes, shapes and features. Most of them will come rimmed, smooth bottomed and made from shiny-metal colored stainless steel or cast aluminum. These will do most of what you want without issue. Lets talk about some features and what they’re for:
Ridged: These are the ones with a lumpy texture along the bottom. Supposedly these allow for airflow under what you’re cooking to promote a more even bake. I do not find any difference between these and my usual pans.
Anodized or Coated non-stick: These are usually black sheets. They’re typically made with stainless or carbon steel and are coated in a non-stick layer. These are just like nonstick pans and I find them to be an expensive upgrade for a coating that will invariably flake off. If your cookies are sticking to a smooth, stainless or aluminum pan, you’re better off greasing your pan or throw down a layer of parchment paper.
Black: Believe it or not, black vs silver baking sheets do make a difference. Black sheets will absorb more heat and get hotter than reflective sheets in most ovens. These are not idea for cookie sheets as they tend to burn the bottoms of cookies, but are fine for baking sheets that you intend to cook meats in. They’ll usually deliver more Maillard reaction browning than traditionally silver sheets. Worth having around if you don’t have Cast Iron to bake your meats in.
Air Flow, Hollow Core or Air Bake: These are sheets that are two layers of metal rolled at the ends leaving a gap of air in the middle. Supposedly this will allow for a more even transfer of heat and…it does. Airflow tend to be less likely to burn baked goods and have shown to cook food ~10% faster than normal.
As you can see, I would normally recommend regular old rimmed metal sheets, but maybe with a couple of airbake cookie sheets.
CAST IRON VS BAKING STONE:
Alright, this is a hot topic, pun intended. Which is better for a crisp crust? A baking stone or a cast iron pan? I’m going to go on record as saying IT DOESN’T MATTER. I like Cast Iron because I already have one. I don’t need to go buy another thing to keep in my kitchen for pizza and crusty-bottom breads. But if you don’t like cast iron or don’t have the space for one, a stone (just a terracotta tile) doesn’t take up much space and works great.
When doing pizza though, I will say…A cast iron skillet or stone tile is easier to get a flat crust onto than a skillet is. Either way, be careful. It’s still blazingly hot.