Whats The Brown Burnt
These dark spots are the result of oil and fats heated above their smoke point the oil polymerizes into a resin that bonds with metal it can actually help brown food better than a fresh-faced pan.
Though there are ways to remove them, like a baking soda paste or Bar Keepers Friend, these spots are cosmetic and wont affect the pan’s performance.
Metal Vs Glass Baking Pans
Did you know that there is a difference in baking with metal versus baking with glass?
Metal, like aluminum, is a conductor, meaning it heats up quickly and allows heat to pass through easily. This bakes your cake evenly and quickly. Metal pans are also basically indestructible!
Glass is an insulator, meaning it takes longer to heat up, but will stay hot for longer. Baking a cake in glass can take longer than baking in a metal pan, which often translates into overcooked edges while waiting for the center to finish.
The benefit of glass is that you can see your cake while it bakes, ensuring the edges don’t burn. It’s also visually pleasing to serve a cake in a glass pan.
While I did bake my 9×13 cake in a glass pan for these photos, I recommend using an aluminum pan instead. Metal is easier to work with overall, and your cake is more likely to bake evenly throughout.
Here’s a great article with more details: Bon Appetit – Is It Better to Bake in Glass or Metal?
Cake Batter Tips And Tricks
- Make sure your butter, eggs, and milk are all room temperature before beginning . Room temperature ingredients emulsify when mixed and create a creamy, even batter that bakes up fluffy in the oven.
- Sift or whisk your dry ingredients together. This removes clumps and helps make a smooth, even batter.
- Mix your dry ingredients just enough to incorporate them into the batter. Overmixing can overwork the gluten, causing your cake to turn out tough.
- I recommend using a hand mixer on medium speed for creaming together your butter, sugar, and eggs. Then, switch to low speed for adding the dry ingredients and milk.
Top left: Butter and sugar creamed together, Top right: Eggs and vanilla added to the batter, Bottom left: Adding milk and flour, Bottom right: Fully mixed batter.
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Straight To The Point
Our favorite half sheet baking pan is the Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Commercial Bakers Half Sheet Pan. Its made of a heavy gauge metal that doesnt warp in the oven. Cookies and cakes baked evenly, and roasted potato wedges browned nicely and released with ease. We also liked the Chicago Metallic Commercial II Traditional Uncoated Large Jelly Roll Pan. It’s made of a heavy-duty commercial grade metal that is extremely durable and heated evenly with minimal warping.
Weve told folks before that half sheet pans are the unsung heroes of the kitchen they can be used to not only bake cookies, but also to roast vegetables, make sheet pan meals, dry brine chicken and turkey, rest meat, and so much more. We even use half sheet pans to help prep and organize ingredients. And the pans can even function as utilitarian serving trays. Best of all, unlike rimless cookie sheets, half sheet baking pans are usually the same size . So even if you mix and match brands, they should nest and store together easily.
We tested seven popular uncoated half sheet pans to see which held up to a myriad of kitchen tasks. We didn’t include any nonstick models, as the darker nonstick coating can affect bake and cook times and eventually will wear off, limiting the lifespan of the pan. Nonstick pans also have a lower oven-safe temperature max, making them less versatile than uncoated pans.
The Best Sheet Cake Pans
For an actual sheet cake that’s typically decorated and sold in grocery stores and by cake shops alike, you’re talking about a 9x13x2 inch pan . The pans are usually 2 inches deep .
For my business, I don’t use the terms half sheet, quarter sheet, full-sheet, etc. because I’ve found that these sizes aren’t always uniform in the baking community. But I’m going to do my best to explain what I’ve found in research.
First, the height of your cake matters as far as servings. When most people talk about sheet cakes, they’re thinking of a single layer of cake, approximately 2-inches tall.
If you make a two-layer cake instead, you double the number of servings. I actually prefer this if I’m doing sheet cakes because I think it looks nicer, but that’s a personal preference.
I’m sure there’s a correct size for a “quarter sheet cake” but there’s some conflicting information out there, so I just say the actual pan sizes: 9×13 or 10×15 or whatever. Then I give my clients the number of servings for whichever size I’m talking about and go from there.
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What Size Pan To Use
This recipe works as written in three different sizes:
- 9×13 baking pan
- Two 9-inch round cake pans
- 13×18 half sheet pan
So, what size do you choose? This is totally up to personal preference. I have tested this recipe in all three sizes and they all turn out tender, moist, and delicious.
Both the 9×13 and 13×18 sheet cakes can remain in the pan after baking. Simply frost, slice, and serve! Round cakes need to be removed from their pans, trimmed, assembled, and frosted. This will take extra skill, patience, and frosting .
Suggested baking pans:
Faq: Questions About The Recipes Techniques
Why do I need to toast the pecans?
Honestly, you can skip this step to save time, but your Texas sheet cake likely wont be as good and flavorful as mine. Why? Toasting nuts brings out more flavorful oils within the nuts themselves, leading to deeper flavors. You also improve their texture by adding snap and crunchiness. If you skip this step, youll be sacrificing flavor and texture in your Texas sheet cake!
Many stores sell roasted nuts. These are technically nuts that have already been toasted. However, the longer they sit, the staler and less flavorful they become. So even if you have roasted nuts on hand, I suggest that you toast them anyway.
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Minor Warping Wasn’t Super Concerning
Warping occurs when metal stretches and contracts after being exposed to extreme hot and cold .
Most of the sheet pans we tested started out flat and then warped slightly when placed in a 475°F oven. But all of them snapped back when cooled, and the warping really was minimal to begin with. One pan, from Fat Daddio, was slightly warped to start, which meant oil pooled and the potato wedges stuck to the pan in spots. So, if your sheet pan isn’t flush with the countertop when you take it out of the box: return it.
Next Make The Chocolate Buttermilk Sheet Cake
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Skip The Textured Pans
Serious Eats / Irvin Lin
Two pans, the Nordic Ware Prism and the Williams Sonoma, had textured surfaces. These pans were more rigid , but the texture made cleanup more difficult and the crevices trapped oil, baking it onto the surface. Pans with flat bottoms performed just as well, released baked and roasted food just as easily, and cleaned up far easier.
Product Details For Tigerchef Half Size Aluminum Sheet Pan 18 X 13
Bake your cookies, sheet cakes, and other pastries to perfection using the TigerChef Half Size Aluminum Sheet Pan 18″ x 13″. Constructed from heavy duty, commercial quality 19-gauge aluminum, this half size sheet pan offers superior heat conductivity that allows your baked goods to rise and bake evenly across the full length of its surface. It also cools down quickly, making it safe to handle in busy commercial settings. In addition, it features rolled edges with a wire reinforced beaded rim that helps it maintain its shape and prevents warping, even after repeated use.
Thanks to its rolled edge design, it is easy to grasp and maneuver and your baked goods won’t slide off. This versatile and easy care commercial grade aluminum sheet pan is easy to stack and store when not in use and is NSF listed so it is easy to clean and keep sanitary, even in busy bakeries and commercial kitchens.
- 19 gauge durable aluminum construction
- Wide and shallow baking pan with folded corners
- Excellent heat conduction produces evenly baked foods
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The Criteria: What To Look For In A Half Sheet Baking Pan
Serious Eats / Irvin Lin / Grace Kelly
When looking for a good half sheet pan, select one made from a heavier gauge material, like uncoated aluminum or aluminized steel. These pans conduct heat evenly, release food easily, and are resistant to warping. We also preferred pans with rolled rims, which were more comfortable to grip ontowith or without oven mitts on.
Finally Assemble And Serve The Cake
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The Best Half Sheet Baking Pan: Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Commercial Bakers Half Sheet
Made of aluminized steel, this sheet pan had a comfortable rolled edge which didn’t bite into our palms as we held onto it and made it easy to pull from the oven, even when using bulky oven mitts. The heavy gauge material also resisted warping. Cookies baked up consistently across the pan, delicate cakes came out evenly cooked, and roasted potatoes browned and released without any issues. It’s very reasonably priced, too, and conveniently sold in a two-pack.
Faq: Troubleshooting Unexpected Recipe Results
Help! My frosting was super lumpy after I added in the confectioners sugar. What did I do wrong?
Absolutely nothing. When you first add the confectioners sugar to the rest of the frosting, it will look super lumpy. This is totally normalI promise! Just keep whisking everything over medium-low heat until the lumps smoothen themselves out. If, after 5 minutes, your frosting still looks super lumpy, dont panic! Instead, turn the stovetop up to medium and whisk continuously. The higher heat will help smoothen the frosting.
Help! I made the frosting too soon and it set and developed a crust on top before the cake was done. What can I do to fix it?
Ah, yes. Throughout this blog post, I repeatedly warn you that the frostings surface has a tendency to crust if made too soon. But dont worry, its fixable! Simply keep the frosting in the saucepan over medium-low heat, and whisk continuously to dissolve the crust. Continue whisking over very low heat until the frosting is ready to be poured over the cake.
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Traditional Sheet Cake Pans
Anyway, for traditional “sheet cakes”, I love Parrish Magic Line Pans. Actually, this is my favorite brand for all traditional cake pans ! They’re quality pans that bake evenly and beautifully.
Magic Line pans also hold up for the long haul and do not warp even after thousands of runs through my oven.
Best of all, Magic Line pans also have super sharp corners for sheet and square cakes and I love that feature! Elegant designs can look cheep if they don’t have sharp professional corners.
With our recent move, I’ve had to split cake work between the new house and the old one. I didn’t have all of my sheet pans in one place to take pics for this post, so I only have the one size pictured.
But I actually have these three sizes:
A couple of times I’ve needed an odd size in between those and I’ll just slide two together… and have a 13×18 or 20×15. That’s what I did for this huge bank order a few years ago .
Back Up: What’s A Half Sheet Pan
Serious Eats / Irvin Lin
Unlike other baking pans , half sheet pans are almost all the same size: roughly 18 inches long, 13 inches wide, and 1-inch high. Not only are half sheet pans standard in size, they also fit perfectly in most home ovens with plenty of space around them to allow for air and heat circulation.
The name “half sheet” refers to the size being half the size of a commercial sheet pan. Quarter sheet pans and even one-eighth sheet pans exist, too, and we can safely recommend buying our favorite pans from Nordic Ware or Chicago Metallic in these smaller sizes.
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First Prep The Ingredients
The Best Half Sheet Baking Pan: Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Commercial Bakers Half Sheet Pan
What we liked: This sheet pan performed well in all of our tests. Cookies came out golden brown and evenly baked cakes baked up perfectly springy from edge to center and roasted potato wedges emerged crispy and released easily. The heavy gauge of the pan made it durable and less prone to warping and its rolled rims were easy and comfortable to grip and hold onto. It’s reasonably priced, too.
What we didnt like: The pan has the Nordic Ware logo embossed on its surface. While this didn’t effect performance, oil gathered at the edges of the logo and required extra scrubbing to remove. However, this is truly a small quibble.
Price at time of publish: $24.
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What Size Is A Quarter Sheet Cake
In my experience, 9-inch by 13-inch pans are almost always called quarter sheet cake pans. Once I saw someone refer to a 7×11 inch pan as a quarter sheet or quarter pan, but that was literally one time.
Because I have a $100 minimum order requirement, I no longer offer sheet cakes, but when I did, this was the most common size for birthdays and baby showers.
How Big Is A Serving Of Cake
I’m also going to talk about portions or serving sizes for the different pans. My servings are based on 2x2x2 inch slices of single layer cake. This is the typical size served at birthday parties.
The width of the cake slice changes if you do two layers of cake. For my calculations, if the cake is 4-5 inches tall, I use a 1x2x4 inch slice of cake as my serving or portion size.
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What Half Sheet Cake Size
The size of a half-size pan varies depending on who you talk to or where you buy the cake from. A half sheet cake is usually a 10-inch by 15-inch sheet or an 11-inch by 15-inch sheet. I’m not sure why there are varying widths with those two sizes but I think it depends on the brand you buy.
Sometimes 9-inch by 13-inch pans are called half-sheet pans, but more commonly this size is called a quarter sheet, as previously discussed.
Natural Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
You need 2 Tablespoons natural unsweetened cocoa powder to make the Texas sheet cake, plus another 2 Tablespoons to make its frosting.
Natural Unsweetened Cocoa Powder versus Dutch-Processed Cocoa Powder
Cocoa powder, when used in baking recipes, often comes in two varieties: natural unsweetened, and Dutch-processed.
Natural unsweetened cocoa powder is more typical and is cocoa powder in its purest form. It is slightly reddish brown in color and results in deeply flavored chocolate goods. Because it is slightly acidic, it is often paired with baking soda in baking recipes to help create a chemical reaction that will cause the baked good to rise in the oven.
Dutch-processed cocoa powder is natural unsweetened cocoa powder thats been treated with alkaline to neutralize its acidity, giving it a darker color and milder flavor. It is the cocoa powder that is used for making midnight-black baked goods like Oreos.
I only have Dutch-processed cocoa powder. Can I use that in this Texas sheet cake recipe instead?
Yes! Although Dutch-processed cocoa powder cant always be substituted for natural unsweetened cocoa powder, it will work in this recipe. Just note that your Texas sheet cake will come out darker in color than minebut dont worry! It will still be tasty.
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