Ramekins are beautiful bakeware vessels that create an aesthetic for your French desserts. They provide enough room and heat movement for your desserts, like Crème Brulee or soufflé, to rise and be super fluffy and evenly baked.
Take a look below at some of the best Ramekin substitutes in my post below!
What Is A Ramekin?
A ramekin is a vessel that is used mostly in baking. A regular ramekin is about 3 inches to 4 inches that is perfect for a single serving. The overall shape of the ramekin is round, with vertical flutes surrounding the body. In the market, ramekins tend to be available in white, as it is their traditional color. However, you can find them in a variety of shapes, textures, and colors that match your style.
Regarding their material, ramekins are normally derived from ceramic, so it is oven-safe with a non-stick surface. This would help them to resist the high temperature and be stable during the baking time.
Occasionally, you can find ramekins in glass, cast iron, steel, and aluminum. In this case, you need to consider whether your dish will withstand a high heat process as these materials are not as durable as ceramic and porcelain, especially for popular dishes like Brulee. You need to use a blowtorch to create a caramelized sugar surface on top.
What Is A Ramekin Used For?
If you’re a fan of desserts, you will probably see ramekins in chocolate soufflé and Crème Brulee dishes. Without the small vertical sides, the souffle’s size wouldn’t reach that puffiness.
However, their possibility doesn’t stop at French desserts. With their round shape and perfect size, the ramekin dish is flexible for containing prepared ingredients before cooking.
You can also use them as a beautiful container for your treats, nuts, snacks, and dipping sauce.
Recommended Ramekins Substitutes
When looking at individual ramekin substitutes, you need to ensure the shape and heat-resistant material to achieve the same quality. Using rectangular or other unfamiliar shapes might alter the way your ingredients form while baking in ramekins, affecting the dish’s color, texture, and taste. Then, what to use in place of ramekins?
Without further ado, let’s find out the best ramekin substitutes below!
1. Coffee mug
Mugs or coffee cups are a popular product for enjoying a nice coffee in the morning. Now you can also use them as a cheap ramekins substitute in baking. Mugs made with ceramic or porcelains are good enough to be used in the oven.
Due to the smaller size of ramekins, it is best if you choose mugs with a shorter length similar to ramekins. Using a tall mug can result in lopsided cooking and ruin your souffle quality.
Suppose you need to present your baked goods at a party or event; you can also pick a white mug, so it is close to the classic ramekins.
When cooking French onion soup, mugs are When you make French onion soup, mugs are also a good choice.
You can also use mugs for reheating dessert in the microwave as well. Be sure to look for any metal appearance along with the handle, edge, or prints on the mugs as they are not microwave-safe material.
2. Baking Dish
Baking dishes can also be a great ramekin substitute for creme brulee dishes. Still, you should be mindful of the size and ingredient quantity because of the size difference.
There are various diameters for baking dishes, which range from 6 to 15 inches in diameter. However, to bake Ramekin dishes, you only need those with a maximum size of 8 inches, so the rise and details of your dish don’t change too much during the baking process. Moreover, the bigger the ceramic dish, the longer it takes for you to cook them evenly.
3. Bowl
Another popular choice to substitute for ramekins is a glass bowl. The important factor you need to ensure that the material is oven-safe and heat-resistant, so it will be able to handle high temperatures.
A bowl can work better when you are making a larger serving portion. You can adjust the recipe to utilize the bigger space.
4. Custard Cup
Custard cups are used to make single-serving custards. That’s why it is also an ideal ramekin alternative in desserts. When comparing custard cups vs. ramekins, we can see some similarities. The small glass cups are generally round, with a wide range of sizes and shapes. They are made for baking, so the materials are usually porcelain or stoneware, which are oven-proof.
A regular custard cup can hold up to 6 oz of souffle batter. When using custard cups to substitute for ramekins, you should put them inside the oven with a hot water bath, so the heat can penetrate the cup better. As custard cups are built solely for oven usage, I would recommend you not use them in the freezer and microwave to keep the material intact.
5. Muffin pan
Desserts like lava cakes are exceptionally soft and gooey when cooked with shallow ramekins. You could use a muffin pan as a good replacement when making these! Muffin pans or muffin tins have a relatively more modest size than ramekins, but they can hold up to more than one individual portion.
The muffin pan doesn’t have a quality non-stick feature like shallow ramekins, so you should note to apply flour or oil on the muffin pan surface before putting in the ingredients.
6. Jam jar
If you have any empty jam jars at home, it is time to make them useful as a ramekin substitute. However, jam jars are usually glass, so they are not as durable as ramekin moulds.
You can use them for simple dishes like custards to avoid them being damaged easily.
7. Canning jar
It can be a creative way to serve pudding in an individual serving portion. You can present them by using a canning jar with half a pint capacity as one of the best alternatives to ramekins.
To substitute for a ramekin pan, you should look for a wide lip jar, which can be helpful when you need to remove the pudding out onto a plate.
8. Souffle Dish
Ramekins and souffle dishes are typically mistaken as the same. Souffle dish vs. ramekin: are they the same?
In fact, they have the same shape, which is a round lip and vertical sides outside. However, an individual souffle dish has a bigger size which can hold around 2 quarts.
Thus, when using a souffle dish to substitute a traditional ramekin, you may need to adjust the recipe to a larger amount. Fill the ingredient to ¾ of the dish, and you leave the rising level to accommodate the rest of the area.
