What is a pot, and what is a pan?
Pots are deeper, with straight up sides, for liquids. Pans are shallower, and may have sloped-out or curved sides.
Some say a pot should have two handles, and a pan only one, a longer one. In practice, most pots have one long handle.
Pots are for liquids; pans are for solid ingredients.
Pots often get called pans, but pans are almost never called pots. A saucepan is technically a sauce pot, but you would never refer to a frying pot.
A chip pan is actually a chip pot.
A wok is a pan.
Of course, all guidelines go out the window with Dutch ovens and large soup kettles.
The role of cooking pans is to contain food over heat, and deliver heat from the outside heat source — burner or oven — to the food inside.
Types of pans
Aebleskiver Pans
Aebleskiver Pans are special pans in which to cook Aebleskivers (small Danish pancake balls) on top of the stove.The pans are usually round, but some are shovel-shaped. Round ones will be about 8 inches (20 cm) wide. You can get them made from cast iron,...
Appachatti Pans
An Appachatti Pan is a stove-top frying pan that's completely rounded at the sides, so that it's like a shallow bowl. It has two short handles, one on each side, and will come with a cover usually.
They can be can be cast-iron or non-stick metal. Cast...
Appakarai Pans
An Appakarai Pan is a pan along the idea of a muffin tin, that resembles an Kanom Krok pan in Thailand, and an aebleskiver pan in Denmark, or a frying pan with a permanent egg-poaching insert in it with rounded cups in it.
It is used in India for making...
Baking Pans
Types of baking pans
Baking Pan Conversions
Baking Pan Conversions
© Randal Oulton
Don't feel inadequate because you don't have every baking dish size and shape ever known to mankind just lying about on display in your kitchen. Just stock some standard shapes and sizes, and if a recipe ...
Baking Pans by Dimension
Baking Pans by Dimension
© Randal Oulton
This is a chart of typical baking pan physical dimensions, with their equivalent volume sizes.
The measurements of a baking pan are determined by measuring inside the pan, from edge to edge. Depth is ...
Baking Pans by Volume
Baking Pans by Volume
© Randal Oulton
This is a chart comparing volume of baking pans to their typical, manufactured dimensions.
It's often important to know the capacity in volume of a baking pan, so you can know if a recipe you are making ...
Bread Pans
Bread Pans
© Denzil Green
Bread Pans are primarily used for baking bread in. They can also be used for breads such as banana breads, or for meatloaf.
They can be made of metal, stoneware, CorningWare, glass, silicone, terra cotta or enamelware. ...
French Bread Pans
French Bread Pans are two or three long half-tubes joined at the sides, used for baking baguettes in.
The assumption in the name is that the type of French bread you want to make is a baguette -- because of course there are a zillion other kinds of...
Pullman Loaf Pans
Pullman loaf pan
© Denzil Green
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 ...
Cake Pans
Cake Pans
© Randal Oulton
A Cake Pan is a pan designed to bake a cake in, in an oven.
The pan can be square, round, or rectangular.
There are also speciality shaped ones, such as fire trucks, space ships, etc, though you may be hard pressed ...
Baking Cups
Baking Cups
© Denzil Green
Baking Cups are used to line muffin tins when making cupcakes, muffins or fairy cakes. Their use generally replaces greasing or greasing and flouring the cups.
They are made of pleated wax-treated paper or pleated ...
Bundt Pans
Bundt Pan
© Denzil Green
A Bundt® Pan is a trademarked line of Fluted Tube Pans for baking cakes in.
All the pans have decorative moulded sides, and a hollow tube or space coming up through the middle. They are usually made of heavy cast a...
Cheesecake Pans
Cheesecake Pans are special pans for making Cheesecake in. They can be round or rectangular.
They have two-parts. One whole piece consists of the sides with bottom ledges on them, all joined. The second piece is a bottom that fits into this, sliding...
Flan Pans
A Flan Pan is a round, shallow cake pan, whose bottom is raised in the centre, causing the cake when turned out of the pan inverted to have a plateau in the middle with raised edges around it.In Germany, the pan is called an "Obsttortenform", ("fruit...
Fluted Tube Pans
A Fluted Tube Pan is a pan for baking cakes in. It has fluted sides, and a hollow tube coming up through the middle. It is like a tube cake pan (aka Angel Food Cake pan) with the exception of the sides.
When turned out of the pan, a caked baked in...
Jelly Roll Pans
Jelly Roll Pans are about the size of a large rimmed cookie sheet, except the edges are higher -- about 1 inch (2 1/2 cm) tall. They are used to make a big, shallow sponge cake that is then rolled up to make a jelly roll (aka Swiss Roll.)
They can...
Kugelhopf Pans
Kugelhopf Pans are essentially the same as Fluted Tube Pans. They are used to make Kugelhopf Cakes.The tube in the middle allows heat to penetrate cake from the centre in.
The fluted design of the edges allows for more surface of the cake to get browned,...
Mary Ann Pans
A Mary Ann Pan is a cake pan with a raised flat centre area. Its purpose is to create a light cake shell. A cake baked in one, when turned out, has a raised edge all around it.
The pan will usually be 8 inches (20 cm) wide by 4 inches (10 cm) tall....
Muffin Tins
A Muffin Tin is a baking dish used to make American-style muffins (not English muffins), or cupcakes. It is a series of metal cups connected by a flat metal surface. The cups connect to the metal surface at the lip of each cup.Jumbo-sized muffin tins...
Springform Pans
With a springform cake pan, you don't remove the cake from the pan: you remove the pan from the cake.
Tube Pans
A Tube Pan looks like a pan for a very large doughnut. It is used for sponge and angel food cakes.
It is a deep, ring-shaped pan with a tall tube in the centre. The tube is hollow, with no bottom on it, to allow hot air to pass through it like a...
Casserole Dishes: Sizes, substitution chart, etc.
Casserole Dish Sizes
© Randal Oulton
Casserole Dishes are usually made of glass, cast iron, enamelled cast iron, or earthenware.
They come in varying sizes and shapes, round or square or oblong. They have deep sides and close-fitting covers. ...
Cookie Sheet
A Cookie Sheet is a flat sheet of metal designed for baking, usually cookies (aka biscuits.)It can also be used for baking many other things from wiener wraps to braided breads, oven fries to cinnamon rolls.
Cookie Sheets are usually made of aluminum...
Tassie Cups
Tassie Cups is a term that can mean both the cups (indentations) in a muffin tin, and, the small tart shells made of pastry.
If a recipe says "Buy (or make) tassie cups", it means pastry shells.
Otherwise, the recipe will specify something such...
Broiling Pans
Broiling Pans
© Randal Oulton
Broiling Pans are special low, flat pans that come with North American stoves to help with broiling food. Many stoves come with a two-part broiling pan designed to fit nicely into a designated broiling space.
Broiling ...
Cast Aluminum
Cast Aluminum Frying Pan (with non-stick interior)
© Denzil GreenCast Aluminum cookware can be cast through die casting, mould casting, or sand casting. Die casting is the most usual.
It allows for thicker cookware than sheet aluminum, providing ...
Cast Iron
Cast Iron Frying Pans
© Denzil Green
Cast Iron has a place in the hearts of North Americans, because it's what the pioneers carried with them across the continent. It's not the lightest material to make cooking utensils out of, but it was indestructible.
Cast ...
Chafing Dish
A chafing dish is a covered dish that rests over a pan of water, which in turn is over a heat source. It can be used on tables, sideboards or any surface. It can be used for both warming food, and cooking away from a regular kitchen.
Crêpe Pans
Crêpe Pans are very shallow frying pans, with outward-sloping sides specially designed for frying crêpes in.
They are usually carbon steel pans, up to 14 inches (35 cm) wide, but generally about 7 to 8 inches (18 to 20 cm) wide.
Many people reserve a...
Electric Frying Pans
1970s Electric Frying Pan with insert
© Ian Graham
Electric Frying Pans are frying pans whose heat source comes from electricity. They are not designed for stove-top use.
They tend to be square. Almost all come with a thermostat, that you ...
French Roasting Pans
French Roasting Pans are rectangular roasting pans that have rounded corners, and fixed handles that rise up vertically from the sides.
They will be made of heavy-gauge aluminum, stainless-steel or non-stick coated metal.
They come in varying sizes,...
Frying Pans
Frying Pans
© Denzil GreenFrying pans are wide, shallow pans with a long handle and sloping sides.
The idea behind the slanted sides is to allow steam to escape so that frying and searing can happen. That being said, a frying pan can be used for ...
Kanom Krok Pans
Kanom Krok Pans are very similar to the Danish aebleskiver pans.
They are large flat pans, often made of cast iron, with rounded cavities in them. Various size pans have varying numbers of the round, semi-globular holes in them.
To use, you put...
Meatloaf Pans
Meatloaf Pans are special baking pans sold for making Meatloaf in.
A standard size is 9 3/8 inches long, 5 1/4 inches wide, and 2 3/8 inches tall (24 cm long, 13 cm wide, 6 cm tall.)
Some have an insert with slats or holes in it that sets in the...
Non-Reactive Pans
Non-Reactive Pans are pans whose material won't react with certain ingredients.
Specifically, the concern is with certain acidic foods such as tomatoes, citrus, wine, chutneys, pickles, and cranberries. An interaction between them and the cooking...
Non-Stick Pans
Non-Stick Pans are pans whose inside surfaces have been coated with a permanent non-stick substance, and are sold as such. There are many different brands; you can get both stove-top and electric ones. The American cook, Julia Child, switched from cast-iron...
Omelet Pans
Omelet Pans are frying pans with shallow, steeply sloping sides that allow an omelet being cooked in one to be rolled against the sides, and when it's finished, to slide out easily. An Omelet Pan has a flat bottom, a long handle, and will be anywhere...
Paella Pans
Paella Pans are very broad, round, shallow frying pans used to making Paella in.
The metal they are made of is thin, so that they can respond quickly to changes in heat.
The pans have short looped handles, one on each side. Extremely large Paella...
Quiche Pans
Round Quiche Pan
© Denzil Green
Quiche Pans are for making quiches or tarts (as in large pies) in.
The size ranges from 4 inches (10 cm) to 12 inches (30 cm) wide. Smaller ones are called "tartlet pans."
Unlike pie pans, Quiche Pans have straight ...
Roasting Pans
A Roasting Pan is used for roasting meat such as poultry, ham, beef.
The pans are made of metal or Pyrex. The metal can be made of stainless steel, cast-iron, enamelled or non-stick. Cast-iron ones, which can be plain or enamelled, can be very heavy,...
Sauté Pans
Sauté Pan
© Denzil Green
A Sauté Pan is a frying pan with straight sides. In French, it is actually called a "sautoir."
A good Sauté Pan needs to be light enough so that you can toss things in it, if you want to use that technique while sautéing.
The stra...
Self-Basting Roasters
These are roasting pans that come with lids. On the inside of the lids, there are dimples or grooves specially designed to collect and direct condensation back onto the meat. You can get them with extra high-dome lids to accommodate turkeys.
Some...
Spiders
Spiders were frying pans with long handles, and three very tall legs on them. The pan itself had a flat bottom and slanted slides. Some designs, though, had rounded bottoms, making them look like a wok on stilts.
They were designed to allow you to...
Wok
A Wok is an all-purpose pan. It can be used for braising, deep frying, frying, roasting, stir frying, steaming and stewing. Though used throughout Asia, Woks are best known for their role in Chinese cooking. In Northern China, a Wok is more likely to...
