Choosing the Right Pan

If a recipe calls for a 13- by 9-inch baking pan, should you use Pyrex or a metal pan?

There are actually three basic pan choices—ovensafe glass (like Pyrex), nonstick metal, and regular metal. To test how these pans stack up against one another, we whipped up batches of yellow cake, brownies, and baked macaroni and cheese in each. The ovensafe glass and nonstick metal pans performed well across the board and can be used interchangeably with a few exceptions. The regular metal pans were quite shiny (the nonstick metal pans were dark) and didn’t perform as well. That’s because shiny surfaces reflect heat and don’t brown as well as glass or dark nonstick surfaces.

Glass is sensitive to dramatic changes in temperature (especially if it is cracked), so it can’t be used under the broiler and therefore doesn’t work for casseroles that are broiled to crisp the top. And though its transparency is useful for monitoring browning, glass retains heat almost too well. Although all batches of brownies were cooked to the same internal temperature, those baked in the glass pan were noticeably drier once cooled, because they had continued to cook from the residual heat held by the pan.

In the test kitchen, we reserve nonstick pans for casseroles that go under the broiler or baked goods that cool completely in the pan. Otherwise, we generally use ovensafe glass.