Baking – Maximum oven temperature for glass cookware

Technically you should be able to make almost anything you'd be able to make in a metal dish, in a glass dish, but if the preparation calls for one then you can't simply substitute the other willy-nilly. It will likely require a good deal of fine-tuning.

Glass is an insulator. It absorbs heat. That's why solar panels are glass and why having a window in your home is not like having a gaping hole in your wall. As a consequence of this, (a) it will take a longer time for the dish itself to come up to oven temperature, (b) it will cook much more consistently and evenly, even if you have an oven that turns the element on and off to maintain temperature, and (c) it will continue cooking the food after you remove it from the oven, unless you remove the food from the baking dish immediately.

What this means is that you generally have to extend the cooking time by at least 5-10 minutes (more if you are baking at high temperatures) when substituting glass bakeware for metal, to let the dish "pre-heat." Except if you're going to let the food cool inside the baking pan, in which case you might actually need to decrease the overall time to prevent burning afterward. It's hard to be precise because it depends on what you're cooking, how long you're cooking it and at what temperature.

To be honest, I probably would not use a glass dish for any recipe requiring caramelizing because caramelizing relies entirely on finely-controlled conduction; ovens are less sensitive than a stove top but nevertheless, a few minutes too long and it's burnt, a few minutes too short and it's still solid. Better to choose a material that's highly conductive for that, i.e. metal. Glass is best when you need slower, more even cooking, like casseroles.

The biggest practical differences are going to be:

• Nothing sticks to a well-seasoned cast iron pan. Everything sticks to cast aluminum, even the brands that call themselves non-stick. (I know because I've tried a few of them.)

• While it's true the cast iron can crack, rust or chip if not properly cared for, aluminum is reactive and scratches easily, and even if you get one of the newer anodized ones, you lose the benefits of that as soon as the surface starts to chip and peel (which it will). Cast iron will last much longer when properly maintained; I've seen some that are decades old and heard about some that are more than a century old.

• Aluminum has better conductivity and will, in theory, provide more even heat than cast iron. However, every cast aluminum vessel I've ever used has had major problems with hot spots. Basically, both are poor choices in this respect, except in the oven, where hot spots are essentially a non-issue; if your oven is like mine and the element turns on and off to maintain temperature, you'll get much better results with a cast iron dutch oven because it will hold its temperature while the element is off.

• Cast iron also works great with induction cooktops, aluminum doesn't work at all. [Cast] Aluminum really works best on standard metal cooktop stoves, although it's okay for glass as well. I say okay because most glass cooktops tend to have elements that go on and off, so depending on your particular stove, this might lead to uneven heat when using any kind of aluminum.

• Cast iron is heat-resistant. You mention the melting point, but it's more complicated than that; make sure you check the specifications on whatever cast aluminum you're thinking of buying, because a lot of it isn't even oven-safe (and if it is, it's only safe up to 400° F or so). The term "dutch oven" can be quite a misnomer for those pieces as they can easily warp or crack at high temperatures. Spun aluminum is obviously much worse but cast aluminum is only marginally better.

• On the plus side, cast aluminum is obviously much lighter than cast iron and requires less care. Enameled cast iron is also easy to care for but is obviously much more expensive than both regular cast iron and cast aluminum.

In your case, it would seem that your two primary requirements (caramelizing sugar and roasting meat) are at odds with each other. For roasting, you want a very steady, even heat. For caramelizing sugar you need precise control, you need to be able to reduce the heat very quickly when you hit the melting point. Cast iron would be absolutely terrible for caramelization, but is a far better choice for roasting.

Personally, I use a regular (non-enameled) seasoned cast iron pot as a dutch oven and just use a small light stainless steel saucepan when I need to do something like caramelize sugar. I'd suggest you do the same, unless you're really low on space and genuinely need one piece of cookware to do it all.

Honestly, the only thing that cast aluminum really has going for it is its price. The ease of maintenance is overshadowed by the fact that the pieces don't tend to last that long, and everything else it's good at is handled equally well or better by stainless steel with an aluminum or copper core. The few pieces of aluminum (or cast aluminum) cookware I still own tend to sit at the bottom shelf at the very back and gather dust, but YMMV.