For my 56th birthday on the 11th, I baked my own cake. That sounds pitiful, so let me explain. I wanted to try the two 6-inch round pans I'd bought in January, and a birthday seemed like a good excuse. Greg sang. Biscuit left the room.
The cake was the right size for once. Two layers, chocolate, with enough frosting to be serious about. We ate it over four nights and nobody threw any away. When I make a full 9-inch two-layer cake, the last third ends up stale under plastic wrap.
That small success sent me into the cabinet beside the stove, where 25 years of bakeware lives stacked in the order I usually need it, which is to say, none.
The pans I actually use now
I went through what I'd reached for over the last six months and found the pattern pretty quickly:
- Two 8-by-8 pans, one metal and one glass. These have replaced the 13-by-9 for nearly every casserole and bar cookie. Half a recipe fits almost perfectly.
- Two quarter sheet pans. About 9 by 13 inches with a rim. A whole sheet-pan dinner for two fits on one, and they fit in the dishwasher, which my big half sheet pans never did. About $9 each.
- Two 6-inch round cake pans. $7.99 each. Half of a standard two-layer recipe fills them.
- A 6-cup muffin tin. $8.49. Half a batch of muffins, no empty cups to fill with water.
- A 1-1/2 quart baking dish with a lid. For a small mac and cheese, cobbler, or scalloped potatoes. I already owned this one and never used it.
- A small 7-1/2 by 3-1/2 inch loaf pan. $6.49. For half a meatloaf or half a batch of quick bread.
Total spent on the new pieces this winter: $48.45. Everything else I already had and had shoved to the back.
What went to Emily
Emily and Nate came down the last weekend of January, and I sent them home with a box. Emily is a better baker than she gives herself credit for, and she and Nate host his family more than we host anybody these days.
She got the glass 13-by-9 with the plastic lid, the 12-cup muffin tin, the bundt pan, both 9-inch round cake pans, the springform pan I used exactly twice, and one of my two half sheet pans. Nate carried the box to their car like it was a prize, which was sweet of him.
I'm keeping one metal 13-by-9, one half sheet pan, the roasting pan and the deep-dish pie plate. Thanksgiving still happens here, Christmas cookies still need a big sheet, and some Saturdays Greg wants a whole pan of brownies to take to his union hall. I'm not going to pretend we'll never need a large pan again.
Adjusting time and temperature
When you halve a recipe and use a smaller pan, the oven temperature stays the same, but the time usually comes down. A half batch of brownies in an 8-by-8 took 24 minutes instead of 30. The 6-inch cake layers baked in 23 minutes instead of 30. Meatloaf in the small loaf pan needed about 45 minutes instead of an hour, and I took it out when the thermometer said 160 degrees.
I start checking at about two-thirds of the original time and go from there. Toothpicks for cakes, a thermometer for anything with meat.
The trickiest part of halving baked goods is the eggs. If a recipe calls for three, I beat them together in a measuring cup, which comes to about nine tablespoons, and use half of that. It feels fussy the first time and easy every time after.
I don't want to make this sound like more than it is. I spent under $50 and gave away a box of pans. But opening that cabinet and finding pans the right size for the two of us has made me bake more again, and baking was something I'd almost stopped doing because the results were always too big. A small cake on a Wednesday, just because, is a nice thing to have back.
