The following is a recent article written about the metal sheet pans

The flimsy jellyroll pans sold in most stores are useless. But a heavy-duty rimmed baking sheet is an unheralded workhorse every cook should own.  Many times a day, our test cooks reach for a rimmed baking sheet. We use them for baking cookies, biscuits, scones, and jellyroll cakes, as well as for roasting oven fries and asparagus. With a wire cooling rack set inside, they're good for broiling or roasting meats and in prep work such as holding breaded cutlets before frying. Our baking sheets aren't just for baking - they are true kitchen workhorses.

But you'd be hard-pressed to find these essential pans in most cookware stores. Known as a half-sheet pan in restaurant supply stores, the real thing is made of heavy-gauge metal and measures 18 by 13 inches with a 1-inch rim all around. The closest thing you'll usually find in retail stores is a flimsy, too-small 15 by 10-inch "jellyroll pan."

If you happen to see a roomy rimmed baking sheet, stop and take a look. You want this pan. But are some models more useful and durable than others? After some digging, we found eight heavy-duty, full-sized rimmed baking sheets (traditional finish; nonstick can scratch or overbrown), priced from $9.95 to $59.95, and put them to the test.

Hidden Differences

If you glanced at the pans we gathered for this testing, you would be forgiven for wondering if it really matters which one you use. Our very first test convinced us that it does. We prepared a batch of our slice-and-bake Glazed Lemon Cookies (March/April 2003) in each of the eight baking sheets. Some pans gave us cookies that rose high and turned an evenly light golden brown across the baking sheet; others turned out burnt cookies - even when we repeated the test several times.

A closer look revealed that these pans are not identical. Rimmed baking sheets are formed by a machine that presses a flat metal sheet into a predetermined shape, maintaining consistent pressure so the metal will flow in without wrinkling or cracking, said Campbell Buchanan, technical manager for United Aluminum in North Haven, Conn. They can be made from different alloys and gauges of aluminum, aluminized steel (a thin coat of aluminum over steel), or a tri-ply sandwich of shiny stainless steel with an aluminum core.

We found that solid construction is more important than the choice of materials. A too-flimsy pan warps under high heat. We observed this when the oil pooled at one end of the warping Chicago Metallic baking sheet as we made fries in the 475-degree oven, resulting in uneven browning of the potatoes.

Aluminum sheet pans will soften slightly beginning at temperatures of 400 to 500 degrees, Buchanan said, and the metal will expand and contract. While steel won't soften significantly below 500 degrees, the combination of metals in aluminized steel can behave differently at high heat, leading to the warping we experienced. The thinner pans also seemed much more prone to warping. Buchanan echoed our findings. "The thicker the pan, the better," he told us.

A pan that is too lightweight also can transfer heat too intensely. We saw this with the lightest pan in our lineup (which was also one of the thinnest), by Wilton, which burned batch after batch of cookies. In this pan, oven fries also browned before they were cooked through, and the jellyroll cake finished before the recipe's recommended time. Other pans that overbrowned cookies, Anolon and NordicWare, were also among the thinnest in our testing.

Warped View

After all the cooking was done, we placed the pans on a countertop and pushed down on one corner of the rim. Some pans remained resolutely flat, others rocked - having been warped by our testing. We grasped the short sides of each pan and twisted. Again, some pans could be flexed easily, others could not. In general, the less flexible, flatter pans performed better in the kitchen.

Recipe for the Metal Pans

Marinated Flank Steak

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tsps. Worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 clove  minced garlic
1 1/3 pounds flank steak

Mix first six ingredients for marinade.  Put flank steak in freezer bag, pour marinade over it, seal bag and freeze. Thaw flank steak, remove from marinade, and broil 550degrees.  Broil steak 6 inches from heat until brown, turning once, about 6 minutes on one side and 4 minutes o the other.  Cut steak across grain at slanted angle into thin slices.  Pour marinade over top. Makes 4 servings.

Serve with Twice-Baked potatoes and cooked zucchini

our cluster are calling the metal pans, broiler pans, because they can go under the broilers unlike stoneware...<o:p></o:p>

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So that way we don't look like a hypocrite for selling "metal" pans next season.