Glass, ceramic or metal mold: pastry chefs have a preference for consistently successful tarts
A well-worked pastry, carefully arranged fruit, a properly preheated oven: on paper, all the boxes for the perfect tart are ticked. There might be one detail you've overlooked: the material of your tart pan. Between glass, ceramic, and metal, heat doesn't circulate in the same way.
To measure these differences, pastry chef Rebecca Frey subjected each of them to a rigorous crash test. She prepared three identical puff pastry shells, then blind-baked them in an aluminized steel mold, a tempered glass mold, and a ceramic mold. Once cooled, the crusts were compared based on their color, texture, and flakiness.
And it's the metal that comes out on top. An excellent heat conductor, it heats up quickly and evenly. The result: the pastry finished baking in about 70 minutes, with a beautiful golden color, very little shrinkage, and clearly defined flaky layers. This rapid temperature increase also promotes a sudden release of steam, which contributes to the pastry's flaky texture.
The glass pan performed respectably, but required more patience. It took a total of 85 minutes to achieve a crust as crisp as the metal one, but less evenly golden, with darker edges. Its transparent base does offer one advantage, however: it allows you to directly monitor the browning underneath the tart. The ceramic pan came in last. After 75 minutes, the pastry was still pale and undercooked inside. Even another 20 minutes wasn't enough to properly brown the base, while the edges had already become too dark. Once cooled, the crust lacked flakiness and had a greasy appearance.
The experiment even continued outside the oven. The three tart shells were then filled with lemon cream and kept in the refrigerator for five days. The pastry baked in the metal shell remained crisp for about three days, compared to two days for the one baked in the glass. With the ceramic shell, it had already softened considerably after 24 hours.
When it comes to baking a tart, the metal pan wins hands down. Its thin, smooth edges make it easy to line the pan, trim excess dough, and shape the pastry, whereas the curved, fluted, or decorative edges of some glass and ceramic dishes can complicate the process. A less aesthetically pleasing option, perhaps, but far more efficient.
