There’s a small equipment mistake that can turn a perfectly good baking dish into a pile of broken glass: taking a very cold dish and putting it straight into a very hot oven.

The issue is thermal shock.

Materials expand when heated and contract when cooled. If a dish changes temperature too quickly, different parts of it can experience those changes at different rates.

That creates stress inside the material.

Glass is the obvious example. A baking dish that has just come out of the refrigerator can be particularly vulnerable when exposed suddenly to intense oven heat. Ceramic cookware can also have limitations depending on how it was manufactured and what the manufacturer allows.

This doesn't mean you can never use glass or ceramic bakeware in a hot oven.

The important thing is to know whether that particular dish is designed for the temperature and situation you're using it in.

If the manufacturer's instructions say the dish shouldn't go directly from refrigerator to a hot oven, take that seriously.

Also avoid creating sudden temperature changes in the opposite direction. A very hot dish shouldn't automatically be placed on a cold, wet surface or filled with cold liquid unless the cookware is specifically designed to tolerate that treatment.

And don't assume that because a dish survived it once, the practice is safe indefinitely.

Repeated thermal stress can matter even when nothing visibly happens.

For everyday cooking, the safest habit is simple: avoid unnecessary extreme temperature changes with cookware unless the manufacturer specifically says the dish can handle them.

This is one of those kitchen rules that feels overly cautious right up until the day you hear a loud crack.

A baking dish is designed to hold food.

It's not automatically designed to survive every possible temperature transition we can throw at it.