Sales Rank: 742


Features:

25-year limited warranty

Bakes three baguette-shaped bread loaves

Heavy-gauge aluminized steel with nonstick SilverStone surface

Dishwasher-safe

Made in the USA

Average Rating:
Rating: - Sometimes a pizza stone just isn't enough
I've been working on making the perfect French bread baguette. (It's delicious with goat cheese and some artichoke-lemon spread, but that's another review.) I have an excellent bread machine recipe for the dough but letting the bread proof on my pizza stone before cooking it resulted in slightly "squashed" loaves that were more like narrow ellipses than circles. Although I love my stone's effect on a loaf's crisp crust, I finally ordered this baguette pan.

Mindful of the recommendations in other reviews, I sprayed the pan with cooking oil before using it. I also tossed some corn meal on it. (What can I say? I like its effect on the crust.) I laid the dough in the pan's "troughs," let it rise, then moved it to a preheated oven to bake. Unable to part with the stone entirely, I placed the pan on top of it. The loaves turned out beautifully. They're almost perfectly round, about 2" in diameter; the crust was even crispier than when I used my stone, and it's fairly even all around--slightly more brown on top than on the bottom, perhaps because of the stone being underneath.

Since my kids ate them all, I had to make more the next day. This time, I didn't stretch the dough as much so they came out as 3" baguettes. I also reduced the heat a little, as the pan's instructions recommend. The loaves touched when they rose, so I pulled them apart after about ten minutes of baking. That wasn't a problem though, and they came out even better than before.

Cleanup is easy, especially if you spray the pan, but the perforations are a bit harsh on a sponge, so you might want to use the recommended nylon scrub or a paper towel instead. (Cleaning corn meal out of those holes is a little difficult, however, so I'm reconsidering using corn meal.)

If you bake baguettes frequently, I heartily recommend this pan! (No offense to my pizza stone.)

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Rating: - CHICAGO METALLIC BAGUETTE PAN
I USED THE BAGUETTE PAN FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY AND WAS A BIT APPREHENSIVE AFTER READING THE REVIEW ABOUT DOUGH GETTING STUCK IN THE PERFORATION HOLES, BUT THIS WAS NOT THE CASE. IT REALLY DID A BEAUTIFULL JOB ON MY BREAD! BEFORE PLACING THE DOUGH IN THE PAN I SPRAYED IT WITH A NON STICK COOKING SPRAY AND THEN DUSTED IT WITH A SMALL AMOUNT OF FLOUR. AFTER THE BREAD WAS DONE IT SLIPPED RIGHT OUT OF THE PAN. I BELIEVE THIS IS A REALLY GREAT PRODUCT.

BEV BAKER

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Rating: - Makes your bread crust very crisp
This has to be my favorite pan for making the outside crust on the bread very crisp. It seems that the heat flows better through this pan with the perforation. While the pan is very sturdy and of a heavy gauge, it should provide you with wonderful bread in the years to come. Be sure to give the pan a quick spray of non-stick spray before cooking, but you would do this when making any kind of bread. The three loaves gives you just enough bread so that there won't be any major dicussions of who is getting the last piece of hot bread. If you are a bread maker and haven't given bagettes a try, this would be the idea pan to do this with.