Le Creuset Bakeware Review

Reviewed by Louise Totton

I am hugely into cooking, I always have been, and I really enjoy using good quality pots, pans and utensils. I always think that when you love what you cook with, you can enjoy cooking more and the food somehow tastes nicer.

I have a couple of Le Creuset pans in my kitchen cupboard, including the ubiquitous orange cast iron casserole and a lovely (and seriously heavy) blue frying pan. These are used regularly, so I know what fantastic quality cookware Le Creuset make. I was therefore absolutely delighted to be asked to try out a couple of items from their Bakeware range.

I was sent a rectangular oven tray and a 12 cup muffin tray, and the first thing that struck me when I opened them was how lovely they looked and felt. They are a good, substantial, weight but aren’t overly heavy or cumbersome to lift. They have a fantastic shiny non-stick coating that looks like it will be really effective and will last and last. They also had distinctive and great looking orange grips on tach side of the products which I really like.

They came with instructions to wash with warm, soapy water before using them, which I did.

I’m actually not much of a sweets baker, but I do make an awful lot of savoury food for my family, and I started my test run on a Sunday with a roast dinner. I used the baking tray to make roast potatoes, and as we’re from Yorkshire, and small Yorkshire puddings never quite hit the spot, the muffin tray’s first challenge was to make Yorkshire puddings fit for a Yorkshire family.

I put both bakeware products in the oven to warm up first, along with the cooking oil. As I took them out of the oven to add the potatoes and the Yorkshire pudding batter, they didn’t flex at all, they held really nicely and steady. The orange grips were a great touch as they provide something non-slip and substantial to hold on to whilst handling very hot tins that contain even hotter oil.

I put the par-boiled potatoes onto the tray and coated with the oil. The pan seemed to have heated up really evenly, and the potatoes sizzled nicely as I put the tray back in the oven. The same was true later when I poured the Yorkshire pudding batter into the muffin tins: the batter instantly puffed up evenly before I placed them back into the oven.

I was really impressed with the results, the roast potatoes were really crispy and evenly cooked. They really slid nicely off the non-stick surface and the tray was left beautifully clean; it really only needed a very quick wash to bring it right up to brand new.

The Yorkshires were an amazing success. They all puffed up perfectly (no mean feat when cooking with gluten free flour), they were light, fluffy and were so easy to remove from the muffin tin.

Since then, I have made a pasta bake, a chicken one-pot roast and a tray of brownies in the baking tray. All have come out perfectly. The tray seems to conduct the heat really evenly, so there are no burnt areas or overly crispy bits on anything that I have made in there. It also cleans up really, really well, often just needing a wipe rather than a full clean. We are looking after it by only using plastic utensils on it and so far it is as good today as it was before we used it.

I have made individual gluten free bread rolls in the muffin tin, which were absolutely fantastic, as well as little crustless quiches and a very regular stream of Yorkshire puddings. All have come out absolutely perfectly and again, the tin looks as good as when it was new.

I know that Le Creuset is expensive stuff, but it really does last and last. We have had several items for 20 years plus (they used to belong to my mum), and that kind of quality is expensive but it really lasts. I have a feeling that these are going to be exactly the same.

I would not hesitate to award these a rating of 5 out of 5. I really, really love using them.

Rating: 5/5

RRP: £23 (Oven Tray) / £24 (Muffin Tray)

Available to buy from www.lecreuset.co.uk.