JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day


Monday, October 29, 2007

Baking pans


















Thank you all for so much wonderful advice about baking pans ... I'd have wasted quite a bit of money without it. As it is, I'm having a hard time spending any money at all, because it's proving so hard to find good quality baking kit. There's an opening here in the UK for a really good speciality shop for everything a baker needs - online would be fine, too.

I wanted to buy ceramic coated pans, several in two sizes, and perhaps one Pampered Chef form for a change (I'm like Amanda, not too keen on washing up). And then a couple of silicone muffin forms. Some of this I haven't yet been able to source in the UK, others - well, there wasn't very much choice.

I've been shopping online and through the door ... what you see in the photograph is all I have bought, one non-stick heavy duty 2-lb loaf tin from John Lewis, just to see how it does, and a John Lewis muffin form. I don't want to sound spoilt, but I really really wanted it to be pink (making muffins and cupcakes is such a girly activity). Black was all they had.

The loaf tin seems fine. Unexciting but fine. I've cooked a couple of new breads in it, so it's hard to tell (especially as neither turned out perfectly). Today I'll bake one of my "usual" breads and see how that goes.

In the meantime, if anyone can give me a contact for a UK Pampered Chef dealer, I'd be very glad. And I'll keep looking for ceramic coatings. Oh yes, and THANK YOU Marie (no blog) for the tip about the Richard Bertinet shop for scrapers. Also courses. I think I'm going to enrol on a day course ... anyone for a bloggers day out in Bath?


PS I've just remembered that, decades ago, I had a flowerpot I used to use for baking brown bread ... perhaps I'll go back to that, it was very good, providing you obey the instruction to temper the flowerpot before you first use it for dough, otherwise the bread will never come out ... I hope you can tell that I am speaking here from experience

4 comments:

Celia Hart said...

Hi Joanna, If you can't find a Pampered Chef person for your area I think you can you can order via this web site http://www.pamperedchef.biz/ninabutler

But I'm sure you could get yourself invited to a PC Party if you ask around! And you'll get persuaded to buy all sorts of stuff!

I really should get into bread making, all the different loaves you've tried look so tempting. The trouble is, as my studio is at home could I resist nibbling them when I have a tea break?

Celia

Jacqueline Meldrum said...

Well you have made a start, so that is good!

I would like to see a step by step flowerpot loaf!

Karen Baking Soda said...

Good! You've taken the first step! I so don't want to know about that day course...(envious? me?).
Now, flowerpots... they do make excellent crusts, but I seem to remember that they used to have- or still have- some unhealthy components, can't remember exactly but isn't there lead in them?
That said, I use a large terra cotta dish (bought at a garden supply shop) to bake my bread on. Like a bread stone, preheated with the oven, works wonders. The only downside is that it's round and has a rim. Too skimpy to buy the real thing....yet!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

I missed this in all the camotion at the end of the month. So happy you're on this one, take your time and it will make you happy. I'm with Karen I so don't want to know about that class in Bath - gad could we ever have fun together there!