GoodCook 8 × 4 in Nonstick Loaf Pans, Set of 2

What the maker puts in writing

• “SET OF TWO 8 x 4-INCH MEDIUM LOAF PANS: Great for baking meatloaf, sweet or savory breads, thick cakes or brownies, smaller portions of lasagnas or casseroles”
• “EVEN HEAT DISTRIBUTION: Distributes heat evenly during the baking process to ensure a thorough bake”
• “SCRATCH-RESISTANT NONSTICK COATING: Provides an excellent mess-free release and is metal spatula safe so you can serve your baked goods right out of the pan without worry”
• “DURABLE CONSTRUCTION: Heavy-duty gauge steel resists warping and provides long-lasting durability”
• “EASY TO CLEAN: Dishwasher safe for a quick and easy clean up, but hand-washing is recommended for longer-lasting results”
• Reference 4244 · Catalog: 408 g (14.4 oz), 102 × 259 × 102 mm (4.02 × 10.2 × 4.02 in)

Six dollars a pan, a cent dearer than the bigger pan

$11.99 for two is $6.00 each.

The same maker’s 9 × 5 loaf pan is $5.99 for one — a larger pan, a cent cheaper.

And the cheapest steel per piece on this shelf is a six-piece set: the Amazon Basics at $31.99 works out at $5.33 a piece.

The full per-piece ranking:

Waytiffer foil pie tins — 20 cents (50 for $9.99) Waytiffer foil loaf pans — 40 cents (25 for $9.99) Amazon Basics six-piece — $5.33 GoodCook 9 × 5 — $5.99 GoodCook 13 × 9 — $9.99 · MegaGrip 8 × 8 — $10.09 · Sur La Table 9 × 5 — $11.70 this — $6.00 Elbee eight-piece — $7.50 (8 for $59.99) KitchenAid 9 × 5 — $14.99 · KitchenAid 12-cup muffin — $21.99, which is four times the per-piece price of the six-piece set

So “set of two” is not where the saving is on this shelf. What you are paying for is the size.

And there is one argument the price comparison misses. Two matched pans bake two loaves identically, side by side on one shelf. Two pans bought separately may differ in color, depth and gauge — and on this shelf color alone changes the bake, since a dark pan browns faster than a light one.

Eight by four: the pan a halved recipe fits

8 × 4 is 32 square inches of base. The 9 × 5 standard is 45. This is 71 percent of the pan.

The difference shows up in height, not area. The same batter stands taller in an 8 × 4 and takes longer in the middle.

Which is exactly the use. A loaf recipe halved and put in a 9 × 5 bakes flat — it has nothing to rise against, the crust-to-crumb ratio goes wrong, and you get a slab. In an 8 × 4 a half recipe makes a loaf shape.

It is also the pan for enriched and sweet doughs, which rise less and benefit from narrower walls to climb — and bullet one names them: “sweet or savory breads, thick cakes or brownies”.

Across the shelf, by loaf size:

8 × 4 — 32 in², these two 8.5 × 4.5 — 38 in², the Waytiffer disposable at $9.99, rated “2Lb” — the only dough-weight capacity on this shelf 9 × 5 — 45 in², three pans: GoodCook $5.99, Sur La Table $11.70, KitchenAid $14.99, plus a fourth inside the Amazon Basics set

A 2 lb rating on an 8.5 × 4.5 implies roughly a 1.5 lb dough for an 8 × 4 — which is the figure this page should have given and does not. No steel pan on this shelf publishes a capacity.

And the practical reason for two: a loaf recipe usually makes more than one pan’s worth, and the second loaf freezes. A pair of matched 8 × 4 pans is the bake-one-freeze-one arrangement.

The catalog measures two pans stacked, uniquely on this shelf

The catalog reads 102 × 259 × 102 mm — 4.0 × 10.2 × 4.0 inches.

Read it against the pans. The width, 102 mm, is 4.0 inches — exactly the published figure. The length, 259 mm, is 10.2 inches — about two inches over the published 8, the familiar loaf-pan rim flare. And the third figure is 102 mm again, 4.0 inches, which is far too deep for an 8 × 4 loaf pan and is consistent with two pans nested.

The shelf confirms how loaf pans behave. The GoodCook 9 × 5 and the KitchenAid 9 × 5 both catalog at 279 × 152 mm — 11.0 × 6.0 inches, two inches over each way, because the quoted size is the base and the walls flare so the loaf releases.

The flat pans do not do this. The GoodCook 13 × 9 reads 330 × 229 × 51 mm = 13.0 × 9.0 × 2.0 inches, exactly its label. The MegaGrip 8 × 8 reads 203 × 203 mm = 8.0 × 8.0, exactly.

What it costs you here: no single-pan depth is available from any source. For reference the GoodCook 9 × 5 catalogs at 65 mm and the KitchenAid 9 × 5 at 77 mm — a half-inch difference between two pans of the same nominal size — and no page on this shelf publishes a depth at all.

On the weight, the catalog is clearer: 408 g for the pair, 204 g each. Against 268 g for the maker’s 9 × 5 and 310 g for the MegaGrip 8 × 8. Per square inch of base that is 6.4 g for these, 6.0 for the 9 × 5 and 4.8 for the MegaGrip — which is the only thickness signal the shelf offers, since nobody publishes a gauge.

Metal spatula safe, which no rival claims

“is metal spatula safe so you can serve your baked goods right out of the pan without worry”

GoodCook claims it on three of its four pans here — this set, the 9 × 5 at $5.99 and the 13 × 9 at $9.99, where it is in the product name. Not on the MegaGrip 8 × 8 at $10.09, which says only “scratch-resistant”.

Nobody else on this shelf claims it at all. Not Sur La Table, not either KitchenAid, not Amazon Basics, not Elbee.

The failure of a non-stick pan is not wear. It is one cut. Once the film is broken, batter works under the edge, food sticks there permanently, and the break spreads from that point every time something scrapes past it.

On a loaf pan the cut comes from turning out, not from serving: a loaf that has caught at a corner gets a knife run round it. A pan rated for metal survives that; a pan that is not will carry the mark for the rest of its life.

The shelf hints at why only GoodCook grants it. The Sur La Table 9 × 5 at $11.70 publishes “PFOA, PFAS, PTFE Free” — a coating that is not a fluoropolymer, and ceramic-type films are hard but brittle. KitchenAid calls its coating “Swiss-engineered heavy-duty”, which names no material.

The honest limit: a spatula or a palette knife, not a serrated knife sawing on the base.

Dishwasher safe, with the caveat spelled out

“Dishwasher safe for a quick and easy clean up, but hand-washing is recommended for longer-lasting results”

Note the “but”, which is stronger than the wording GoodCook uses on its other pans — the 9 × 5 and the MegaGrip both say “Hand washing is recommended” with no conjunction.

Both halves are true on 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 metal-spatula pan it eventually will be.

The shelf, on washing:

GoodCook — the caveat, on three pans GoodCook 13 × 9 — nothing at all KitchenAid, both pans — “DISHWASHER SAFE: for easy cleanup”, no caveat Amazon Basics, $31.99 — “Hand wash for best results”, and no dishwasher claim Elbee, $59.99 — “Dishwasher safe and rust resistant”, the shelf’s only mention of rust Sur La Table — nothing

Two pans in a set is the case where the dishwasher is most tempting, because two pans is a sink’s worth of washing up. The habit that matters more than the bullet: wash them warm, dry them immediately, and do not nest them wet — trapped water between two nested steel pans is where rust starts.

Heavy-duty gauge steel, and no gauge

“Heavy-duty gauge steel resists warping and provides long-lasting durability”

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

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

Four phrases, zero numbers, behind warping promises made five times across the shelf.

Why it bites on a small pan. Warping is the hot part of a sheet expanding against the cool part past the yield point. A small pan has proportionally more edge — 32 square inches of base inside a 24-inch perimeter — so the wall-to-base junction carries more of the stress than on a 13 × 9. Once a loaf pan rocks, batter runs to one end and the loaf bakes wedge-shaped.

And the thing in your control is thermal shock: let the pan cool on the hob before it meets water. Nothing on this shelf says so.

What is not published

No single-pan depth, as above, and this is the one item here whose catalog figure covers two pans at once.

No capacity. The only dough-weight capacity on this shelf is on a disposable — the Waytiffer foil loaf pan at $9.99 publishes “2Lb” for a 8.5 × 4.5 × 2.5 pan. A loaf pan is a volume and no steel pan here gives one.

No gauge or thickness, as above.

No oven temperature limit. Only the Amazon Basics set (428 °F, exactly 220 °C) and the Elbee set (420 °F, plus convection) publish one, and many bread recipes call for 450 °F, above both. Eleven of thirteen items here, including this, say nothing.

No coating composition. “Scratch-resistant nonstick” names a property. Only the Sur La Table says what its coating is free of, and only by negation.

No color in the bullets, though the product name gives Gray. A dark pan absorbs more radiant heat and browns faster than a light one — these are the darkest pans on a shelf whose lightest is the Linen White Sur La Table, and no page here mentions the effect.

No statement on nesting, on a set of two pans that plainly nest — which the catalog figure of 102 mm betrays and the page never mentions.

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

Availability

Read on the day this page was built: $12 at the American Amazon shop.

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