Pie / Flan dish - ceramic or metal

[PecanNut]

If you have made / make pies or flans, do you use a ceramic / porcelain dish or a metal tin or something else (e.g. glass)?

What works best?

DH wants to make both meat pies - so deepish ones, and lighter flans / quiches too. I want to make a bakewell pudding.

Any recommendations?

I prefer the metal ones with loose bottoms, easier to get the pie/quiche out of the tin. I find I can't remove them from ceramic/glass ones without cutting the pie/quiche.

Although you Don't want a loose bottom for a meat pie...sorry

meat pies are best on an enamel pie dish imo....most hardware stores seem to have them...or I collected a pile when M&S did pricey puddings in enamel dishes!

Pork pies/anything with a hotwater crust use a springform tin

quiches...I tend to use a couple of very old and date acropal glass dishes, but i do have loose bottomed flan tins too, I usually use those for fancier tarts.

Some of the heavier ceramic ones can lend themselves to making your pastry bottom a bit soggy, so I'd generally get those onto a preheated tray as you put them into the oven.

Great advice, thanks so much! I'll have a look around now.

Only flan dish I have is a heavy ceramic one that used to belong to my Granny... no wonder I've never had much success with it.

Less chance of a "Soggy Bottom" with a good metal quiche dish as it conducts heat better (not stainless steel which is not a good conductor - aluminium is excellent). Springforms quite good, but there is nothing you need a Springform for that can't be done in a standard loose based cake pan.

For quiches an ordinary metal one is best for conducting the heat and avoiding a soggy bottom.

I have a really old one that rusts, but it's brilliant. The other week I cooked a quiche in a newer aluminium one with a non-stick coating. The bottom was soggy, and that's in an Aga. With the old one it isn't.

The rustable ones are the ones used by professionals.