GoodCook MegaGrip 8 × 8 in Square Baking Pan

What the maker puts in writing

• “8 x 8-INCH SQUARE BAKING PAN: This 8x8 baking pan is made from heavy-gauge steel and ensures a perfect bake every time for your favorite recipes such as breads, cakes, brownies, and more.”
• “NONSTICK COATING: This baking dish features a scratch-resistant nonstick coating for a mess-free release to serve your baked goods directly from the pan.”
• “SILICONE GRIP HANDLES: This square pan features ergonomic silicone grips on both handles, providing a comfortable and secure hold. These grips make it easier to place in and take out of the oven”
• “EVEN HEAT DISTRIBUTION: The heavy-duty steel oven pan ensures long-lasting durability and even heat distribution”
• “DISHWASHER-SAFE: This non-stick kitchen pan is dishwasher safe for easy cleanup after use. Hand washing is recommended for longer-lasting use”
• Reference 04276 · Catalog: 310 g (10.9 oz), 203 × 203 × 49 mm (7.99 × 7.99 × 1.93 in)

The only silicone grips on this shelf, and they are on the pan that needs them

“ergonomic silicone grips on both handles… make it easier to place in and take out of the oven”

An 8 × 8 is the awkward pan to get out of an oven, and this is why.

A 13 × 9 has long sides you can get two hands under — the GoodCook 13 × 9 at $9.99 sells precisely that: “wide-rim sides make the pan easy to take in and out of the oven, even while wearing oven mitts.” A loaf pan is narrow enough to grip across its width.

An 8 × 8 is a compact heavy square with a thin rolled edge on all four sides. In oven mitts you have no finger precision — a mitt grips by friction and pressure, and a thin lip gives you neither.

Three items on this shelf address handling, and only this one gives you something to hold:

this — silicone grips on both handles GoodCook 13 × 9, $9.99 — wide rims KitchenAid, both pans — “extended handles”, which is reach rather than grip: “a secure grip for easy transport… even when wearing pot holders”

The other eight items say nothing about getting the pan out of the oven.

What is missing is a heat rating for the silicone. Food-grade silicone is generally serviceable to around 220 °C, which is the same region as the only two oven limits on this shelf — 428 °F (exactly 220 °C) on the Amazon Basics set and 420 °F on the Elbee. This page publishes no limit for the pan and none for the silicone, and on the one item here with a polymer part inside the oven that is the figure to want.

And the handle projection is not published either. The catalog plan is 203 × 203 mm — exactly 8.0 × 8.0 inches, which is the pan and not the pan plus handles. The grips stick out and by how much is not stated, which on a 22-inch oven shelf is the difference between two of these side by side and one.

Eight by eight exactly, confirmed

The catalog reads 203 × 203 mm — 8.0 × 8.0 inches. Exact.

The flat pans on this shelf all behave like this. The GoodCook 13 × 9 at $9.99 catalogs at 330 × 229 × 51 mm = 13.0 × 9.0 × 2.0 inches, exactly its published figure.

The loaf pans do not. The GoodCook 9 × 5 at $5.99 and the KitchenAid 9 × 5 at $14.99 both catalog at 279 × 152 mm — 11.0 × 6.0 inches, two inches over in each direction. A loaf pan is tapered and measured at the base; a shallow square has near-vertical walls and measures what it says.

The depth is the figure this page omits. The catalog says 49 mm — about 1.9 inches. An 8 × 8 is conventionally 2 inches deep, and nothing on the page states it. A batter filled to a two-inch assumption in a 1.9-inch pan is the one that goes over the side.

Fifty-five percent of a 13 × 9, which is the point of the size

An 8 × 8 is 64 square inches. A 13 × 9 is 117.

So this is 55 percent of the rectangle — and a boxed mix written for a 13 × 9 baked in this comes out roughly twice as deep.

That is the reason to own one, not a compromise. Depth changes the ratio of crust to center, which is the whole argument about brownies, and the edge pieces of an 8 × 8 are a smaller fraction of the total than in a 13 × 9.

The shelf, by area:

8 × 8 — 64 in², this 9 inch round — 63.6 in², two of them in the Amazon Basics set at $31.99: within half a square inch of this pan, which is why box mixes offer the two interchangeably 9 × 5 loaf — 45 in² at the base, three of them here 13 × 9 — 117 in², the GoodCook at $9.99, ten cents cheaper than this 8 × 4 loaf — 32 in², two of them in the GoodCook set at $11.99 “one square tin” in the Elbee eight-piece at $59.99, size not stated

And this pan is the heaviest-for-its-size of the GoodCook four. 310 grams on 64 square inches against 268 grams on a 9 × 5 and 204 grams each for the 8 × 4 pair. Some of the 310 is the handles and the silicone, so it is not a clean gauge comparison — but it is the only weight signal the shelf offers, since no item here publishes a thickness.

The one GoodCook pan that stops short of metal-utensil safe

Its three sister pans all claim it:

9 × 5 loaf, $5.99 — “It is also metal spatula safe” 13 × 9, $9.99 — “METAL-SPATULA SAFE: Safe for use with metal utensils”, and in the product name 8 × 4 set of two, $11.99 — “is metal spatula safe so you can serve your baked goods right out of the pans”

This page says “scratch-resistant nonstick coating”, twice, and stops.

Which is the conspicuous gap, because of what an 8 × 8 is for. Bullet one names brownies. Brownies are cut in the pan and lifted out in squares — a point load dragged across a non-stick film, which is the single most destructive thing you can do to one.

One cut and batter works under the edge, food sticks there permanently, and the break spreads from that point every time something scrapes past.

Two readings, and the page supports neither over the other. It may be the same coating as the sister pans with the bullet simply unwritten — all four are GoodCook, all four say “scratch-resistant”, all four describe heavy steel. Or the coating is genuinely different.

On the evidence published, treat it as not metal-safe. Line it with parchment for anything you intend to cut, which also lets you lift the whole slab out in one piece and cut it on a board.

And note that this is the shelf’s normal state, not an outlier. No other item here claims metal safety at all — not Sur La Table, not either KitchenAid, not Amazon Basics, not Elbee. GoodCook’s other three pans are the exception on this shelf, and this is the rule.

Heavy-gauge steel, with no gauge

“made from heavy-gauge steel” · “The heavy-duty steel oven pan ensures long-lasting durability and even heat distribution”

Gauge is a number, and no item on this shelf publishes one.

The shelf’s vocabulary for thickness: “heavy-duty gauge steel” (GoodCook, three pans) · “heavy-gauge steel” (this) · “heavy-weight steel construction” (Amazon Basics) · “heavy-duty aluminized steel” and a “uniquely designed rim to prevent warping” (KitchenAid, two pans) · “carbon steel” with no adjective (Sur La Table) · “rust resistant” and no material at all (Elbee).

Four phrases, zero numbers.

“Even heat distribution” is the other claim without a figure, and it is asserted on at least nine of the thirteen items here. What actually governs it is thickness and conductivity: a thicker pan spreads a hot spot before the batter sees it, and aluminum conducts about three times better than steel — which is why the KitchenAid pans’ aluminized steel is a material difference and not a finish. Nobody publishes either number.

One thing an 8 × 8 does have in its favor on heat. A compact square has less edge per unit area than a 13 × 9, so proportionally less of the batter is next to a hot wall — which is why an 8 × 8 bake browns more gently at the sides and takes longer in the middle. Nothing on the page says so.

Dishwasher safe, with the caveat that makes it honest

“dishwasher safe for easy cleanup after use. Hand washing is recommended for longer-lasting use”

Both halves are true and they describe different time scales. A dishwasher will not destroy the pan today. Over years the hot alkaline cycle attacks the coating, and carbon steel rusts wherever the coating is broken — which on a pan you cut brownies in it eventually will be.

GoodCook publishes this line verbatim on three pans here. The 13 × 9 publishes nothing about washing at all.

The rest of the shelf: KitchenAid publishes “DISHWASHER SAFE: for easy cleanup” on both pans with no caveat; Amazon Basics publishes only “Hand wash for best results” on a $31.99 set; Elbee publishes “Dishwasher safe and rust resistant”, the shelf’s only mention of rust; Sur La Table says nothing.

One extra reason to hand wash this one in particular. It is the only metal pan here with a silicone part, and silicone picks up grease and odor over repeated hot cycles. It is also the part you will be holding while carrying a hot pan, which is a reason to keep it clean rather than merely nice.

The habit that matters more than any bullet: wash it warm, dry it immediately, and never leave a carbon steel pan to drain.

What is not published

No metal-utensil claim, as above, uniquely among the four GoodCook pans here.

No depth. The catalog says 49 mm, about 1.9 inches, and the page gives nothing.

No heat rating for the silicone, on the one item on this shelf with a polymer part inside the oven.

No handle projection, so the 8 × 8 figure understates what the pan occupies.

No oven temperature limit, as with at least nine of the thirteen items here. Only the Amazon Basics set (428 °F, exactly 220 °C) and the Elbee set (420 °F, plus convection) publish one.

No gauge or thickness, as above.

No coating composition. “Scratch-resistant nonstick” is a property, not a material. Only the Sur La Table at $11.70 states what its coating is free of — “PFOA, PFAS, PTFE Free” — and only by negation.

No color named in the bullets, where the product name gives it for the other three GoodCook pans. All four are gray, and a dark pan absorbs more radiant heat and browns faster than a light one — a real baking variable that no page on this shelf mentions, including the one that sells color as a feature.

No warranty and no country of manufacture, which no item on this shelf publishes.

Availability

Read on the day this page was built: $10 at the American Amazon shop.

Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.