The standard advice for baking in glass is to lower the oven temperature by 25°F from what the recipe calls for, and bake up to 10 minutes longer. Hope that helps!
Glass pans can retain heat differently than metal pans. As a general rule, you may need to reduce the baking time by about 10-15 minutes compared to what the recipe suggests for metal pans. Start checking for doneness a bit earlier. Use a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center of the cake.
So, if you're in a pinch and need to use glass or ceramic cookware for recipes that call for baking pans, reduce the baking temperature by about 25ºF. It's also important to note some glassware, such as Pyrex, can be prone to thermal shock, meaning rapid temperature change could cause your bakeware to shatter.
2 Answers 2 Within reasonable limits, baking time is proportional to the thickness of the cake. If you scale your recipe proportionately to the change in surface area from the standard pan to the one you are going to use, the baking time will be approximately the same.
If all you have is a glass pan, here's what to do: try dropping the temperature from 350°F to 325°F and increasing the time anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the volume of batter.
Changing Pan Sizes
If you are using a larger pan or a square pan instead of a round pan, your batter will be thinner and baking time may decrease. If you are choosing to use a smaller pan, the baking time may need to be increased.
This means your dishes bake perfectly evenly from edge to edge when using glass. 👉 Foods also bake faster in glass pans. With no hot or cold spots, the heat energy gets transferred efficiently into the food. Your casseroles and baked goods will cook quickly, saving you time and energy.
Best of all, your kitchen should smell heavenly when the cake is done baking. For the Classic Birthday Cake made in a 9” x 13” pan, bake it for 45 to 48 minutes at 325°F until it tests done.
Glass bowls made of borosilicate or tempered glass and marked as oven-safe can go in the oven and withstand high temperatures. Those made of non-tempered glass may not be suitable with heat resistance and withstanding temperature changes.
Aluminum is good for cakes, bars, and pies—but also for breads: focaccia, sandwich loaves, and rolls. Because metal heats up faster than glass, it contributes to a better rise and crisper, browner edges.
This means it takes longer than metal to heat up, but it also holds heat longer than a metal pan. Because of this, brownies baked in a glass pan will need more time to bake. That slow heat-up and additional time can result in brownies with hard, overly-baked edges and a questionably “done” center.
"Avoid sudden temperature changes to glassware," the Pryex website reads. "DO NOT add liquid to hot glassware; place hot glassware on a wet or cool surface, directly on countertop or metal surface, or in sink; or handle hot glassware with wet cloth." (The all-caps emphasis is theirs.)
As you can see in the photo, the slower transfer of heat to the batter means cakes baked in glass (or ceramic) will take longer to cook than those in metal (5 to 8 minutes longer, according to a test with yellow cake done by Cook's Illustrated).
Some of Dawn's favorite baking tips:
Bake your cakes at 325° not 350°. This will allow your cake to rise more. Don't grease the sides of your baking pan. Greasing the sides of the pan will not allow your cake to climb the edges of the pan and grow tall.
There are three things to keep in mind to achieve pound cake glory: First, a metal loaf pan conducts heat faster than a glass one, resulting in a higher rise and golden crust—avoid glass loaf pans which conduct heat slowly and lead to a dense, greasy cake.
Baking in metal means you can bake a dessert until the center is done, remove it from the oven, and not have to worry about the pan continuing to bake the edges. Glass, however, will retain the heat, and continue to bake what's inside, resulting in either an underbaked center or an overbaked edge—or often both.
It is hard to tell how much you will need to adjust the time by as this will depend on the size difference but for a larger pan start checking 10-15 minutes prior to the stated time, and for a smaller pan add time in 5-minute increments until it is baked.
The major disadvantage of glass cookware is that it can break if dropped or exposed to rapid changes in temperature. That's why it is most often used in the oven, where the temperature change occurs evenly and slowly. Some pots are safe on the stovetop, but it's best to check the seller's use recommendations first.
This formula will help you find the right cooking time to adjust by multiplying the initial time by the percentage difference caused by temperature change. For example, if you want to cook from 400˚F (200˚C) to 450˚F (230˚C), then that would be: 400 ÷ 450 = 0.89 or 89%. From here, you can adjust the expected time.
The area of a 8x8 pan on the other hand, is 64 square inches, or close to half that of a 9x13 pan. This means you can scale a recipe down from a 9x13 pan to an 8x8 pan by simply halving the recipe. Conversely, to go from a 8x8 pan to a 9x13 pan, you double the recipe.
Plus, irregularities in the heat source may make one corner hotter than the other. To avoid one section of your bake drying out or browning too much, you'll want to rotate your pan to make sure each side gets the same amount of love.