How to clean baking dishes

Baking dishes get a lot of use. We use them to make stews, casseroles, puddings and lasagnes. Furthermore, we need to use them nearly every day. However, this baked-on food is not always easy to remove. This article will show you how to how clean your baking dishes.

General rules

We need to use our cooking pans on a regular basis and we don't want to keep buying new ones because we've damaged the old ones. To keep your cooking and baking equipment in good working order, you must clean them effectively. For a start, never use wire scrubbers or pads to remove burnt-on stains as these can damage the surface of your cookware. Such scrubbing will remove non-stick coating on metal pans and the glaze on stoneware dishes and cause nasty scratches in glass dishes. Instead follow the advice below.

Cake baking pans

As soon as you remove your cakes from the oven, remove them from the baking pans and put them to rest on a wired-cooling tray. Now, before the residue of the cake starts to stick to the pans, place the pans in hot, soapy water and allow them to soak for a few minutes. You can let them soak whilst you make the cake filling. Then, using a soft cloth, remove any burnt on residue. If stains are stubborn, leave to soak for longer, or pour salt over the pan and fill with hot water to soak. The salt lifts the burnt residue from the cake baking pan.

Lasagne dishes

Baked recipes mean that dishes always require soaking. Lasagne dishes, for example, have burnt pieces of pasta stuck to them as well as pieces of cheese and tomato sauce. Again, the best idea is to soak the dish as soon as you have finished with it. A big lasagne could take a day or two to soak after you cooked it. Again, using salt in the soaking water really helps to remove burnt on food. Then, wash in the usual manner or place in the dishwasher.

Other baking dishes and utensils

Stoneware and glass dishes that have been used to cook stews or casseroles are often very hard to clean. Again, soaking with salty water is the best way to remove any burnt-on or stubborn food stains. Soak for up to 24 hours if necessary and then clean in hot soapy water in the usual manner. Pastry brushes should be washed in hot soapy water and then scalded under boiling water to ensure that they are fully clean. Other baking utensils such as whisks and spoons can be cleaned normally.