Kitchen Tip: How to Wash and Dry Your Tartlet Pans

We’ve recently been working on some tart recipes in the Sunset test kitchen. We’re using small tartlet pans for one of the recipes because they’re great for parties and oh-so adorable when finished.

But a question came up about how to best wash the pans. You can put them in the dishwasher or wash them with hot soapy water. Either way, you should definitely wash the molds each time, as most tart dough recipes have a high amount of butter and can leave them greasy and smelly when being stored.

If you put them away while still wet, or even a little damp, they’ll start to rust. See that brown stuff at the top edge? That’s rust and now that it’s started, it will only get worse if we’re not careful.

The best way is to wash and then immediately spread them out on a baking sheet.

Then, put them into a hot oven for about 10 minutes to dry. This way you’ll be sure there aren’t any specks of water on the surface. Let them cool and then stack and store them.

The next time you pull them out to use your little pans, they’ll be clean, dry, rust-free, and ready to go.