Consumer Reports Recommends This American-Made Pie Pan For Golden Crust Every Time

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A homemade pie can go sideways in a hot minute, which is either annoying or disastrous, depending on the severity or your tolerance for imperfection. But one of the most disappointing things is discovering that a beautifully crafted pie still carries a pale complexion, or worse, a soggy bottom. Choosing the right pie pan for your bake is crucial, and the one used for baking your masterpiece can make a real difference. Consumer Reports put seven popular options to the test, and one emerged as the overall best: the USA Pan 9-Inch Pie Pan. 

For making the comparisons, Consumer Reports selected pie pans made from metal, glass, and ceramic, then put them through the exact same blueberry-pie test. The tester compared several things affecting usability and outcomes, including the all-important crust and how evenly it baked. The report states that it was particularly seeking out "the ones that deliver flaky and evenly browned crusts."  

Consumer Reports also considered manufacturers' claims about whether the products were free of potentially harmful substances, including the controversial biggies: BPA, PTFE, and PFAS. Those things are particularly important to consumers concerned about chemicals in nonstick pans.

Given the big-name cookware tested, the details can make all the difference. Though all seven pans — including those from King Arthur, Le Creuset, Oxo, Pyrex, Staub, and Williams Sonoma — produced acceptable pies, Consumer Reports says the better performers stood out for not only successful crust browning, but also for easier cleanup. For the USA Pan pick, what helps all that happen is Americoat, a proprietary silicone nonstick coating. It creates a non-toxic, non-stick surface, specifically noted as being free of all the alphabet-soup additives, including PTFE, PFOA, PFOS, PFAS, and BPA, as well as lead.

The material the USA Pan 9-Inch Pie Pan is made from makes it particularly well-suited to pie-crust perfection, the same reason why you may want to make your next pie in a metal pan. The company credits its aluminized steel with distributing heat efficiently, which in turns helps the crust bake and brown consistently, even on the underside, where juicy fruit fillings tend to congregate in a soggy party. The pan's bottom isn't completely smooth, instead featuring USA Pan's distinctive fluted surface that reportedly helps air circulate more evenly — leading to that holy grail of perfection: the golden, crispy crust.

Though price wasn't a determining factor in the Consumer Reports testing, it's worth noting the affordability of the USA Pan offering. The pan generally sells for around $20 and is readily accessible from online retailers such as Amazon.