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Home » Kitchenware » Pans » Baking Pans » Bread Pans

Bread Pans

Bread pans being greased

Bread pans being greased. pxfuel.com / CC0 1.0

Bread pans are pans primarily used for baking bread in. They are typically in a rectangular shape. They can also be used for quick breads such as banana breads, or for meatloaf.

Bread pans can be made of metal, stoneware, CorningWare, glass, silicone, terra cotta or enamelware. You can also get disposable ones made of foil. Silicone ones will have stiffening supports in them so that they don’t have to be supported by a baking sheet.

Usually rectangular, with plain, flat sides and bottoms, there are two common sizes: 23 cm long by 13 cm wide (9 inches long by 5 inches wide), and 22 cm long by 11 cm wide (8 ½ inches long by 4 ½ inches wide).

In addition to plain-sided ones, you can also get ones that have designs impressed into them, so that they in effect act as decorative moulds for making specialty breads such as lemon bread.

Contents hide
  • 1 Cooking Tips
  • 2 Substitutes
  • 3 Equivalents
  • 4 History Notes
  • 5 Types of bread pans
    • 5.1 Terra Cotta Bread Pans
    • 5.2 Braided Loaf Pans
    • 5.3 Bread machine pans
    • 5.4 Cornbread Pans
    • 5.5 French Bread Pans
    • 5.6 Metal Bread Pans
    • 5.7 Non-stick bread pans
    • 5.8 Pullman Loaf Pans

Cooking Tips

When greasing a bread pan, use a solid fat such as butter, margarine or shortening. Oil doesn’t work as well, because the dough just absorbs it.

A sign that bread is done is that it should release itself easily from the pan. Always remove bread from a bread pan after it is finished baking, or it will go soggy.

If you are baking a bread with fruit in it, pieces of which might stick to the pan, some bakers first grease the pans and then line the pans with brown paper or parchment paper.

You can wipe bread pans clean with a damp cloth or sponge. Many bakers, however, do not if the pans are truly dedicated to just bread.

Substitutes

Large juice or coffee cans.

Equivalents

  • A 20½ x 10 x 6½ cm (8 x 4 x 2½ inch) bread loaf pan will hold a 450 g (1 pound) loaf of bread (calling for approximately 2 cups / 10 oz / 300 g of flour)
  • A 23 x 13 x 7 cm (9 x 5 x 2 ¾ inch) bread loaf pan will hold a 900 g (2 pound ) loaf of bread (a bread recipe calling for approximately 3 ¾ to 4 cups / 20 oz / 550 g of flour)
  • A 23 x 13 x 7 cm (9 x 5 x 2 ¾ inch) bread loaf pan equals two 7 x 3-inch OR three 6 x 3 inch mini pans

History Notes

Bread used to be round because it was just plopped in the oven, and went round. There were no bread pans. Bread pans could have been made of iron, but they would have been too expensive.

In the 1700s, the tin mines in Cornwall, England, were mined in earnest again, for the first time since the Romans, and the tin was used to make affordable bread pans. Bread baked in these bread pans could be toasted and sliced more easily — just in time for the rise in popularity of the sandwich.

Types of bread pans

Terra Cotta Bread Pans

Terra cotta bread pans need a few more bakes than metal ones do before they are seasoned. To season them, you are first supposed to soak the pan in water first, then rub it with oil. Then bake in a low oven (125 C / 250 F) until the oil is dry, and let cool completely, You then repeat the process an additional three times.

Braided Loaf Pans

Braided loaf pans have a moulded shape on the bottom. When the bread is baked, you flip the loaf over to present it “bottom up” so that it looks like a braided loaf of bread. The purpose is to save you all the work of making a braided loaf. Some shake their heads, pointing out that braiding dough is the work of seconds, and nothing compared to the work of making the dough in the first place.

One problem with the finished product can be that the top rises — as bread is wont to do — in a curved formation, making for an unstable bottom when you flip the loaf. The tippiness of the loaf on the breadboard is going to be the giveaway that all is not as it seems.

Bread machine pans

Bread machine pans

Bread machines come with their own "built-in", non-stick bread pans. The pan will have a paddle in the bottom, and be detachable from the machine. You don't grease bread pans in bread machines; as the bread pans double as a "mixing bowl", anything...
Cornbread Pans

Cornbread Pans

Cornbread pans are typically a cast iron tray with around seven moulds in it. These moulds are long, and shaped like an ear of corn with kernels indents in them.
French Bread Pans

French Bread Pans

A French bread pan is an American innovation to help home bakers make French-style baguettes . In France, there is no such thing actually called a "French bread pan." French bread pans are two or three long half-tubes joined at the sides, used for...
Metal Bread Pans

Metal Bread Pans

Metal bread pans can be shiny or dark. Ones made of darker metal produce a darker crust; ones made of light metal, a lighter crust. The metal can be bare, or treated with a non-stick coating. Professional-grade metal bread pans are made of heavier...
Non-stick bread pans

Non-stick bread pans

Non-stick bread pans are standard loaf-shaped bread pans with a non-stick coating on them. The advantage to non-stick bread pans may seem compelling at first, but some people feel that they never seem to last as long as the regular "stick" ones. The...
Pullman Loaf Pans

Pullman Loaf Pans

Pullman loaf pans (aka Pullman bread pans) make a perfectly rectangular loaf of bread that is consistent in width and height for its entire length, so that when sliced it yields consistently-sized, perfectly square slices of bread for sandwiches. It...

Other names

AKA: Bread Tins, Loaf Pans, Loaf Tins

This page first published: May 18, 2005 · Updated: May 24, 2022.

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Tagged With: Baking Pans, Bread, Bread Pans

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