I went shopping at a restaurant supply store here in Los Angeles, and saw something called “pastry rings.” A search on the internet shows that they are also called “tart rings” and “pastry frames.” They come in varying sizes and shapes, and they look like the sides only of tart pans, or a springform pan without the bottom.

How do you use them? Is it like making a free-form tart, except that a tart ring makes the sides of the baked pastry more defined? Do they work with all kinds of dough, from pie crust to danish to puff pastry? Why would you use a tart ring instead of a tart pan with a removeable bottom?

Thanks in advance for explaining this to me!

I know they are sometimes used as a mold to build layered desserts.

Christine, they are used in bakeries and professional kitchens in place of loose bottomed or springform pans.  They are much cheaper and you can bake many tarts on one sheet pan.  To make tarts and pies, you can pretty much use them in the same way as tart tins but you have to have them already on the baking sheet before lining them with pie crust.  The big advantages are that they are the cost (much cheaper), they are easy to store and really save on the washing up!  The taller ones cannot in general be used for baking cakes as there will be leaking between the ring and the baking sheet, but, as Patrincia says, they are used for creating layered desserts.

AnnieMacD is 100% accurate!

Are these similar to the ‘cake rings’ I’ve seen called for in some cookbooks?