The Best Pie Dish: Glass, Ceramic or Metal

Nordic Ware makes its Naturals bakeware in Minnesota from bare aluminum, the same material as its well-known half sheet pans. The pie pan measures 9 inches inside, 10.3 inches across the rim and 1.5 inches deep, which is the size most American recipes assume, and the wide lip gives you room to crimp or flute an edge.

Aluminum is the best heat conductor of the three materials. Heat reaches the bottom crust quickly, so pastry sets and browns before the filling can soak it. That makes metal the right choice for a blind-baked shell, a cream pie or a custard pie such as pumpkin, where the crust gets most of its baking before the filling goes in.

It is not a serving piece, and bare aluminum dulls in the dishwasher, so wash it by hand. Acidic fillings left in it for days can mark the metal; move leftovers to another dish.

The catch. Looks like a baking pan, not a serving dish, and wants hand washing.

Le Creuset's Heritage pie dish is heavy stoneware under a glossy enamel glaze, with the fluted rim of an old French tart dish. The maker rates it for temperatures from -9°F to 500°F and describes the glaze as nonporous, scratch resistant and resistant to cracking and crazing.

Stoneware heats slowly and holds heat long after it leaves the oven. That suits a long-baked apple or cherry pie, a quiche, a cobbler or a crumb-crust pie, and it keeps the pie warm through dessert. The white glaze goes with any table.

The same slowness is its weakness with pastry. A bottom crust in stoneware browns less than in metal, so bake on the lowest rack or on a preheated baking sheet, and give it the full time. Skip it if a crisp, deeply browned bottom is the whole point.

The catch. Slower to brown a bottom crust than metal or glass.

Emile Henry has made ceramic ovenware in Marcigny, in Burgundy, since 1850. This is its deep ruffled pie dish: about 10.4 inches across and 2.4 inches deep, holding 1.25 quarts, in the maker's HR high-resistance ceramic. It goes from freezer or refrigerator to a hot oven, is rated to 520°F, and is dishwasher safe.

The depth is the reason to buy it. A deep-dish apple pie piled high with fruit, a pot pie or a tall quiche fits without the bubbling-over mess on the oven floor. The ruffled rim is inspired by old French bakeware and makes it easy to cut a clean slice at the edge.

It needs more filling than a standard recipe gives, and a longer bake. For the ordinary 9-inch recipe, Emile Henry's standard pie dish, which appears in our gifts under $50 guide, is the better fit.

The catch. Too deep for a standard 9-inch recipe without scaling it up.