Tips
and Maintenance of Your Bake ware
Care
of your tart pans and rings!
Mine are made of steel and have excellent heat conductivity
which is really important in making tarts and pies. If your
going to make the investment, then purchase the best ones
you can afford at a good kitchen supply store. In reality
they are really inexpensive when you consider what your going
to get from them. What else can you buy for around 15 dollars
that will last the rest of your life?
Because
mine are made of steel they never get washed with soap and
water, (they like to rust), unless I have used them with meat
or fish. I run them under hot water using a kitchen brush
to clean them off then dry them with paper towel, then into
a warm oven to be sure they are really dry before I put them
away. This is a good way of handling all your metal tart,
quiche, and loaf pans.
Spring
Form Pans
I
don't wash my spring form pans either even though they don't
rust. I find that the first to go is the little tension spring
on the side - it likes to rust!
I
rinse them out with hot water using a plastic kitchen brush.
If they are particularly messy I let them soak in warm water
for a few minutes and attack them again with the brush, this
usually is all that is needed.
I
dry them right away with paper towel and then place them back
in the warm oven to be sure that they are really good and
dry before I put them away.
Take
good care of all your metal bake ware. I have had some of
mine for more than 25 years and expect to have them for another
25. (Very optimistic aren't I?)
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Porcelain
Quiche Pans
As
table decoration I think these are great but for use in
baking I think they would be better suited as bird baths
for your garden or terrace. I really detest these things
and think they are quite useless.
The
main principle in baking any pie crust is the good transference
of heat trough the baking tin. When you place your pie,
or shell into the oven the heat needs to be relatively high
(a little less so for quiche and custards), so that the
dough gets hot quickly and begins to bake as quickly as
possible. While baking, the dough goes through several stages,
the dough gets hot, the butter begins to heat releasing
steam and air (this air helps make your crust light) but
the steam can make it soggy and it needs to be dispersed
as fast as possible. If it does not cook quickly you won't
get the desired results from your dough.
Metal
is the best conductor of heat. Almost as soon as you place
the pan in the oven it becomes as hot as the interior of
the oven. This one factor is what you need for good pie
crusts so that when you cut into them the crusts are fully
cooked and firm. This is best achieved using metal pans.
This
simply isn't achieved using porcelain molds. It can't be
as the porcelain takes too long to come up to temperature
in the oven while the dough is getting warm and limp before
the actual baking process begins. There is just too much
material between the dough and the heat source. In any case
for baking I opt for metal every time.
Porcelain
molds can be used successfully for open tarts where the
crust is partially or fully cooked before it is used because
there is no filling in them to hold up the cooking process.
Porcelain
molds are also pretty traditional for soufflés and
custards. For this they are great and I have several porcelain
soufflé molds and custard molds for crème
brûlée and other custards. Individual molds
come to the table looking pretty and can be extremely handy.
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