Can you put cups in the oven?

I wanna make chicken pot pie for dinner but not a big pie, separate pies. I don’t own ramekins but I do have over 2 dozen ceramic and stoneware mugs. I have put plates in the oven while the oven was on warm but never at a cooking temp. Do you think they’ll do?

Also, how about some quick and easy chicken pot pie recipes? My thought was to make a chicken stew with carrots, onions and celery, thicken it with a little flour, pour that into the cups and top the cups with rounds of ready made pie crust.

Yes. When you wrote “cups” I use that word to refer to plastic cups, like a sippy cup (handles and sipper optional), but you meant coffee mugs, right? I have baked cupcakes in coffee mugs – they get really tall so you can split 'em in half and frost the middle and the top. Yum. I see no reason why you couldn’t put your chicken stew in coffee mugs, but I’d top them with little cut-out circles of puff pastry dough rather than pre-made pie crust. YMMV of course.

I have some glass coffee mugs too, but I have only tried baking in the ceramic ones. Works great.

Sit them on a tray. It’s much easier to pull out one hot cookie sheet than multiple hot mugs.

This would also contain the damage if one of them is not heat proof.

Sure you can…but I would advise you to take the bra off first. Baaa-dump!

Sorry, the OP and their poster name brought this silliness to mind.

Putting them in the oven is only half the issue. When you take them OUT, be careful they don’t come in contact with anything too cold or they may shatter. Probably want to place the whole tray on a cooling rack for a while.

You sure you don’t want to just buy foil tart/pot pie pans? Save you a lot of trouble and guesswork, and you’ll end up with a consistent product.

Yes, I did that with the cupcake in coffee mugs project, in case I overfilled one of the mugs and an errant cupcake boiled over or something.

She can test for ovenproofness by putting the mugs she wants to use on the cookie sheet and just stick 'em in the oven for 20 minutes. Let 'em cool, fill with goodies and pop 'em back in.

Check for hairline cracks first. I put the cookie sheet over the stove burners to cool; it’s like my Alton Brown cooling rack.

What would be the fun in that?

If I were going to the store, I’d get some puff pastry too as that sounds delightful. But I’ve got to work with what I already have. I’m also gathering that my thickened chicken stew will do for pot pie?

I’ve made mini pot pies the exact same way, Biggirl, and, yes, you’ll be fine. Puff pastry or regular pie dough, store-bought or homemade: all good. Your filling sounds fine - taste it when you make it. I’d be sure to brown the chicken first, then deglaze all that nice fond. Don’t forget to season the filling - salt + something. (Poultry seasoning is good!)

The cups or whatever you’re using should have some marker on the underside of the bottom indicating if they’re heat-safe or not, but generally, ceramic or glass is fine in the oven if it’s gently heated up. The cookie sheet helps a lot, too.

It should be great. Since I cannot make a pie crust to save my life, but my husband loves pot pies, I frequently use frozen deep dish pie crusts, and fill them with stew or casserole ingredients. Generally I leave out noodles, though. At any rate, when I roast a chicken or turkey, my husband is very helpful in picking the carcass clean so I can make broth for stew…which he wants in a pot pie.

You can also just make a biscuit dough and use that as the topping. You can roll it out and cut out circles, or cut it into little dumplings and put several on each cup, or just drop a lump on top of each cup. Most people will not complain.

These were a GIGANTIC hit. I used one frozen pie crust and two Goya empanada discs. The pie crust sunk into the cups but the empanada discs puffed up all pretty. Both were delicious. Hubby has now vowed to buy ramekins.

P.S. Besides thickening a basic stew with flour, I also added a cup of half and half. Would have used cream but I didn’t have any.

Glad to hear that it was a triumph. We prefer to have top and bottom crusts, so you might try that next time, when you get your new ramekins.

I have used coffee mugs to make souffles on more than one occasion. Mmm.

Anyone else who might be trying this, avoid any handmade pottery. One little air bubble is all it’ll take - the air inside expands as it gets hotter, and sticky mess ensues.

Glass should be fine, too. Baking glass bottles is a common way for homebrewers to sterilize them before filling.

Good to know, next time I try Alton Brown’s Chiffon Cupcakes recipe again!

I frequently do this in muffin tins. Those work nicely too, and they’re designed for baking.

They would have to be pretty big muffin tins. How do you serve them?

They’re your basic 12-muffin tins; not mini-muffins, not giant grocery-store muffins. I usually just take a cheap pre-made dough (like those cheapo Pillsbury biscuits), roll it flat, and put in (precooked) sausage, cheese, and barbecue sauce. It’s a family recipe and fairly redneck; I’ve tried it with better sausage, which was a bust, and with bleu cheese, which I love but other folks hated. (More for me, right?) One batch serves four people pretty well at three muffins apiece, and they make great leftovers. It’s not a full meal; I’d serve it with corn-on-the-cob, peas, or maybe broccoli.

I am slightly confused. Do you put chicken in it too?