My Cast Iron Bakeware

My Bakeware Essentials

Griswold Loaf Pan

About a year ago I was able to get my hands on the the ultimate cast iron bakeware: A Griswold #877 loaf pan. I have 3 bread recipes I use a lot (cornbread, lemon bread and banana bread), and a really good family meat loaf recipe I can use in this pan. It doesn't exactly fit in the pot rack, but it's a pretty cool piece of bakeware! More recipes to come!

Wagner #1508 Baking Pan

I recently bought this pan, and just finished stripping and seasoning it. I have a lot of recipes I'd like to try using this pan. Everything from my family bread pudding recipe, to baked macaroni and cheese, to Katie's off-the-hook lasagna recipe. Stay tuned!

Griswold 1108 Cookie Sheet

I picked this up the same time I found my Griswold loaf pan. I'm in the process of stripping and re-seasoning it. I'm hoping it makes cookies that are crunchy on the bottom and soft on the inside. Yum. We'll see. Stay tuned!

German "Kugelhopf" Bundt Pan with "Gadroon" Swirls

I grew up eating bundt cakes my mother used to make. I also remember the unusual looking bundt cake pan with the hole in the middle of it. Bundt pans are actually an Americanized version of the German "kugelhopf" pan. In southern Germany they were called a “bundkuchen” (group cake) pan, served at formal gatherings.

Back in 1950, a group of German immigrants approached David Dalquist, then president of Nordic Ware in Minnesota, about recreating the “bundkuchen” pans they remembered their mothers using when they were kids in Germany. Unfortunately, because the original bundkuchen pans were made of cast iron and were very heavy, most of the pans had to be left behind in Germany when families immigrated to the US. The “t” was added by Dalquist to the word “bundt” pan so that Americans would pronounce “bund” the German way.

See my Cast Iron Cookware

Gem Pans and other Bakeware

I've never been much of a baker. When I attended the Le Cordon Bleu program in San Francisco, I studied the Culinary Arts program, rather than opting for the Patisserie and Baking program.

But, over time, I started wanting to add more baking recipes. I already had a loaf pan I used for my family meat loaf recipe, as well as banana and lemon bread, but that was pretty limiting. So I took the plunge and bought myself an old cast iron muffin pan, baking pan and cookie sheet. I wanted to experiment with how cast iron was different from modern, lighter weight, non-stick aluminum bakeware. Big difference! While very heavy, cast iron bakeware holds and distributes heat really well, which creates a nice crust on the outside of what you're baking, while leaving the inside light fluffy and moist.

From those humble beginnings, I moved on to gem pans. Gems, first popularized in the the mid-1800's, were small muffins made with whole wheat Graham flour, and were baked in a heavy cast iron gem pan. Most of the gem recipes have been lost to time, but I am researching them and will include some in this site, and will be adding some modern ones of my own.

My Muffin & Gem Pans

Nathaniel Waterman of Boston is acknowledged as having first patented (in 1859) what is considered the gem muffin pan design, at the time calling it an "egg pan". The main features of the patent were the individual cups with cut-outs between each to allow for the even circulation of heat around them, but still being sufficiently connected together to promote conduction of heat through the iron.