Eight minutes after I put a pan of brownies in the oven this morning, I heard what can only be described as a loud explosion. It sounded like a bomb went off. I peeked inside the oven to discover that my glass dish of brownie batter had shattered. Thank goodness I didn’t peak in moments earlier!


My first thought was, “now I don’t have dessert for the Super Bowl!” Naturally.

Then I spent over an hour just willing it to go away. After some extensive whining, complaining, soul searching and information gathering on Twitter and Facebook, I decided to attempt to clean it up by myself because Mr. How Sweet wouldn’t be home for a few hours.


I scraped up the batter (which was batter at first, but ended up “baking” on the oven floor) and as many pieces of glass as I could with a spatula. This was only after it took me about another hour to get the bottom rack off due to the batter “glue” and large shards of glass wedged in between.


[This is currently still sitting on our kitchen floor. I have separation anxiety.]

Then after getting that wretched rack out, I used the shop vac. Don’t worry, I wore oven mitts and sunglasses as goggles.

Here’s the details:

  • The dish was Pyrex, which I’ve used for years. Not anymore. I will never buy it again. I don’t believe it was a “fluke.” After doing some research, this actually happens often.
  • The oven temperature was on 350 degrees.
  • The dish was in the middle of the oven, touching nothing else.
  • The dish was room temperature when it went into the oven, not hot or cold.
  • The dish was fairly new. It didn’t have any (visible) cracks.
  • I just used it last week at a higher temperature (375), to bake cookie bars.
  • I’m not contacting the company, because I honestly don’t care what they will give me. I don’t want a coupon and I don’t want a new dish. I won’t ever use Pyrex or glass dishes again.

Now who wants a brownie?