Heat resistant glass
I'm trying to decide whether to buy clear glass or colored bakeware for baking to just chilling jello, make casseroles, etc. Is clear glass safer? What about stone?
From: Leidy
Heat resistant glass or stoneware? If you have room in your kitchen have both. Used as instructed both will let you take food from the kitchen to the table and be easy to clean in the dishwasher. Glass will look better with jello dishes while stoneware will enhance casseroles. If you need to pick only one, probably glass is more versatile for presentation. As for color or clear, choose what matches the dishes you already have.
In tests performed at All Foods Natural no significant difference was found between clear or colored glass pans, apart from appearance. Both types of glass are poor conductors of heat but resistant to acid and corrosion. Not to be used on the stove - although some brands can if the pan is standing over a heat diffuser - but useful to cook in the oven.
Glass pans behave better for casseroles than roasting and are useful for reheating and can go straight to the table. As the appearance is the only difference, choose colored glass if the color matches your other dishes, bearing in mind that clear glass would look good next to any kind of tableware.
Glass pans and stoneware can shatter if they get in contact with something cold when they are hot - temperature shock. Typical examples are removing the pan from the oven onto a cold marble or stone surface, placing a hot pan onto a damp spot on the worktop, or pouring cold water into a hot pan. Over the years, the heat resistant glass pans we have tested seemed to stand the temperature shock better than traditional stoneware. However, today you can find stoneware pans that are as safe in the microwave, oven, freezer and dishwasher as heat resistant glass.
Pyroceramic glass, the most popular material for heat resistant glass pans, is a transparent ceramic, not real glass.
The glass pans we tested shattered into pieces, almost exploded, under thermal shock while the stoneware just cracked.
We clearly prefer glass or stoneware to plastic because they are safer materials for the microwave or dishwasher.
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