Last night, as I was preparing dinner, I – very intelligently, as you will find out shortly – sat the baking dish to hold the casserole on the range. I likely wouldn’t have done this previously, since we didn’t have a flat range, and the range that we did have wouldn’t have had the room. So I guess you could consider that a strike against both a flat range surface and replacing a smaller range top with a larger one.
That alone probably wouldn’t have been an issue. Then I turned on the pan to start cooking the chicken when it came out of the microwave. Unfortunately, I turned on the burner underneath the baking dish. That was probably the problem, though it may have simply been bad enough that it was ‘soaking up’ some heat from adjacent burners.
Alas, I didn’t realize the wrong one was on until some time later, as I was chopping the onions and heard a sudden crash. Actually, a crash isn’t quite the right description. It really sounded like an explosion. I thought surely that the kids had tipped over the TV or the computer monitor or something.
Then I realized it was there in the kitchen with me, so I thought something had fallen out of the cabinet and onto the range, shattering it. Only then did I realize I was standing in a sea of cobalt blue glass. Literally – it was spread all over the floor. Then I thought a bottle of lotion or oil or something had somehow shattered, until I realized that was the color of the baking dish I was using, and started putting the pieces together.
Uh, that is the pieces of the puzzle – not the pieces of the dish. Those were gradually cleaned up and thrown away. And when I say gradually, I mean gradually. It took a long time to clean it up. I suspect there are still some pieces of glass in the kitchen that we haven’t found yet, but I think that we did a pretty decent job of getting it all.
So what did we learn? Don’t place a baking dish on the range? Check. Though it doesn’t make sense – shouldn’t a baking dish be able to take some heat? I won’t do it again, just wondering. Don’t buy a cobalt blue baking dish, but instead stick to a different material (Pyrex)? Sounds good, though I don’t know why it matters. Maybe we just ought to stay away from glass entirely. Perhaps stay away from the cooking entirely, and let my wife do it? Now we’re talking, though there are bound to be pluses and minuses to this approach.
Comments
31 responses to “The Exploding Baking Dish”
Hi Janette –
I’d have to say no, but you can always put it in the refrigerator for a while, to at least thaw for a bit. If you’re really paranoid, you can leave it out, but be careful of the ingredients, so as not to make anyone sick.
My dish was glass, but it wasn’t Pyrex (the brand name), and it wasn’t frozen – it came straight out of the cabinet. So I can’t say if it will help or not. I have had a Pyrex dish crack – but it was just a crack. The shattering effect only happened with this one dish, which I believe was an Anchor.
I had a 9×13 cobalt blue pyrex casserole dish explode (or pop and break apart) in the oven about 10 years ago myself. We opened the oven to check the dish and it went BANG! and glass was EVERYWHERE. Obviously, the huge casserole was ruined. I am still afraid to use my pyrex to cook with. I am on this site now because I have a casserole frozen in a dish and I’m afraid to cook it! Does it HAVE to thaw first? (The first one that exploded was NOT frozen).
Yeah, that happened to me once. Scary stuff. It was on the range too, but the burner was off.
I am so thankful I am not the only one!! I just found this site because I wanted an explanation for what caused my casserole dish to explode. I had a feeling that it was the difference in temperature. I had my dish sitting on the stove because we lacked counter space and I set a frozen chicken in it to thaw. When I went to cook breakfast I accidently turned the burner on under the dish and could hear the chicken begin to sizzle. I quickly removed the chicken from the dish and placed the dish on the counter top. We ate breakfast and then I moved the dish back to the stove top. 20 minutes later it exploded into tiny pieces. My nanny discovered the mess and could not tell what she was looking at, she thought a vase fell from the top of the refrigerator. I am just glad to hear that this is pretty common. No more glass on the stove top for me.
Those are crazy! Thanks for the idea of searching on such a thing. I agree that it might be worth not cooking with glass!
I just had a pyrex dish explode sending glass shards 15 ft. away. The dish had been setting on a hot plate protector for almost an hour. Just google “exploding pyrex”, and the first 5 sites will curl your hair. They explode being taken from a cold dishwasher or cupboard. I’m afraid of my own cookware.
I had a similar experience with a Pyrex 9 x 13 dish. I received an Email from Tiffany at World Kitchens (Pyrex) with a phone no. to call. All they would do is offer to replace the dish…no explanation because I had none of the glass left to ship to them for analysis.
However, Consumer Affairs website has reported numerous “explosions” of this sort. One of the sites stated that Pyrex changed something in their formula in 1998 and that is when the explosions seemed to have begun occurring.
Obviously Pyrex wants to keep a low profile on this situation and not admit to any possible defects of their products. I, for one, am done using glass baking dishes…it was a very scary and costly experience.
I did the exact same thing yesterday (Hence why I’m at this site). My boyfriend had unloaded the dishwasher and put the glass dish on the stove because he didnt know where it went. I turned on the wrong burner – the burner it was on – I caught it (cuz the burner was red), turned it off, went to the sink and then it exploded. Scared the crap out of me. And yes, there was glass EVERYWHERE, even in the other room…there’s still some between the fridge and between the stove and cabinets. Worse part – it ruined my spaghetti and meatballs (what was supposed to be heating up).
I just had a baking dish explode in the oven. I had preheated the oven to 350 and placed a cold roasting chicken in the room temperature pan- I had left the kitchen for about 10 minutes when I heard a loud crash which I thought was our dog knocking over the garbage to get the gizzards- I asked my 3 year old daughter to see if he was in the garbage and she came back and told me “something is wrong in the kitchen” Smoke was pouring out of the oven because of the stuff that had fallen onto the heating coil. It’s obvious that the force of the explosion in the oven was extreme and I am very greatful that we didn’t suffer one of these countertop situations I just read about!
Well, since there is confusion – the glass at my house didn’t explode, but the dish, made of glass did explode. It was all over the kitchen.
As I perhaps intended to mention, but did not make clear, there were no veggies or anything else in the dish, as it wasn’t loaded with anything. I was getting ready to use it, and I didn’t sit it there to warm, I sat it there because I didn’t have any counter space. Had I thought the process through, I of course wouldn’t have done it, but, well, things don’t always work out quite the way we would like.
Still, thanks for the information. I’ll try and keep it in mind for next time…