KitchenAid 9 × 5 in Nonstick Loaf Pan

What the maker puts in writing

• “NONSTICK: Swiss-engineered heavy-duty coating allows for nonstick release when baking”
• “VERSATILE: Great for everyday baking, from whipping up cookies, bars, jelly rolls, and sheet cakes, to making easy one-pan weeknight meals”
• “EXTENDED HANDLES: provide a secure grip for easy transport, making transferring pan in and out of the oven safer and simpler, even when wearing pot holders”
• “EVEN BAKING: Aluminized steel construction promotes consistent heat distribution across the pan”
• “DISHWASHER SAFE: for easy cleanup”
• Description: “perfect for making bread, cakes, meatloaf, and casseroles” · “stands up to high heat” · “features a uniquely designed rim to prevent warping”
• Reference KQ957OSNSA · Catalog: 279 × 152 × 77 mm (11 × 5.98 × 3.03 in)

Aluminized steel, which is the one real material difference among the steel pans here

“Aluminized steel construction promotes consistent heat distribution across the pan”

It is carbon steel hot-dipped in an aluminum-silicon alloy, bonded metallurgically rather than painted on.

That buys two things.

Conduction. Aluminum conducts heat about three times better than steel, so the surface layer spreads a hot spot sideways before the batter sees it. “Even heat distribution” is asserted on at least nine of the thirteen items on this shelf and this is one of only two with a material reason behind the claim.

Corrosion resistance. The aluminum layer does not rust — and plain carbon steel rusts wherever its non-stick film is broken, which on bakeware happens at the rim first, from stacking and from knives.

The shelf, by material:

Aluminized steel — this and the 12-cup muffin pan at $21.99, the only two Plain carbon steel — the four GoodCook pans and the Sur La Table at $11.70 Unstated — Amazon Basics (“heavy-weight steel”) and Elbee (“rust resistant”, with no material named at all) 100 percent aluminum foil — the two Waytiffer packs; coated steel — the European Kaiser loaf tin; platinum silicone — the Backefix

Is it worth $14.99 against the $5.99 GoodCook 9 × 5? What it buys is the rim and the reflectivity. It will outlast a plain carbon pan at the edges, and being Contour Silver and reflective it browns more gently than the gray GoodCook — a real baking difference, since a dark surface absorbs radiant heat and a light one reflects it.

What it does not buy is a metal-utensil claim. The $5.99 pan has one and this does not.

Five bullets shared with a muffin pan, and one of them is false

All five bullets on this page appear word for word on the KitchenAid 12-cup muffin pan at $21.99.

Including bullet two: “Great for everyday baking, from whipping up cookies, bars, jelly rolls, and sheet cakes, to making easy one-pan weeknight meals.”

That cannot be true of either pan.

A jelly roll is a thin sheet of sponge baked flat and rolled, which needs a shallow rimmed sheet. This is a three-inch-deep loaf pan. A sheet cake needs the same shallow sheet. Cookies cannot be baked in a loaf pan in any useful sense, and twelve muffin cups cannot bake any of the four.

The description, which is written per product, is accurate: “perfect for making bread, cakes, meatloaf, and casseroles”. The muffin pan’s description is equally accurate about muffins.

So the page contradicts itself — three correct uses in the description, four wrong ones in bullet two.

Compare the maker that writes per pan. The GoodCook 13 × 9 at $9.99 publishes “ideal size for a full box of cake, brownie, or other dessert mixes” — specific, checkable, and true of that pan and no other here.

Read bullet two as collection boilerplate and the description as the specification. This pan does bread, cake, meatloaf and casseroles.

Eleven by six inches, and three inches deep

The catalog reads 279 × 152 × 77 mm — 11.0 × 6.0 × 3.0 inches, for a pan labeled 9 × 5.

The GoodCook 9 × 5 at $5.99 catalogs at exactly the same plan figure: 279 × 152 mm. Two makers, two pans, one number.

A loaf pan is a tapered box. The quoted size is the base; the walls slope outwards so the loaf releases; the rim is wider. Add this pan’s extended handles and you get two inches more in each direction.

The flat pans on this shelf prove the rule by not following it. The GoodCook 13 × 9 catalogs at 330 × 229 × 51 mm = 13.0 × 9.0 × 2.0 inches, exactly its label; the MegaGrip 8 × 8 at 203 × 203 mm = 8.0 × 8.0, exactly.

The depth is where this pan separates from the cheap one, and neither page publishes it.

this — 77 mm, about 3.0 inches GoodCook 9 × 5, $5.99 — 65 mm, about 2.6 inches Sur La Table 9 × 5, $11.70 — no third dimension at all

Nearly half an inch between two pans of the same nominal size. On a loaf pan depth decides whether a risen dough crowns above the rim or goes over it — a recipe written for a three-inch pan will overflow a two-and-a-half-inch one, and no page on this shelf publishes a depth.

If you are buying for bread rather than for cake, this is the deeper of the two, and that is the practical argument for it.

Extended handles: reach, not grip

“EXTENDED HANDLES: provide a secure grip for easy transport… safer and simpler, even when wearing pot holders”

Three items on this shelf address getting the pan out of the oven, three different ways:

Extended handles — this pan and the 12-cup muffin pan: tabs projecting beyond the body, so hands sit further from the hot walls and outside the pan’s footprint Silicone grips — the GoodCook MegaGrip 8 × 8 at $10.09, the only silicone grips on this shelf: real grip, on a pan with no long side to hold Wide rims — the GoodCook 13 × 9 at $9.99: a continuous lip, grippable in mitts

The other eight items say nothing at all about it.

Why reach matters on a loaf pan. A 9 × 5 is narrow and deep, so there is nowhere for your fingers except the two short ends — and the short ends are where the oven walls are closest when the pan sits across a shelf. A tab that projects an inch is an inch your knuckles are not touching the oven.

The cost is footprint, and this pan shows it: 11.0 × 6.0 inches for a 9 × 5, part rim flare and part handles. No handle projection is published, here or anywhere on this shelf, which on a 22-inch oven shelf is the difference between two pans across and one.

A rim designed against warping, and no thickness behind it

“features a uniquely designed rim to prevent warping”

This is the only anti-warp mechanism described on the shelf, rather than simply asserted. Everyone else credits the steel: “heavy-duty gauge steel resists warping” (GoodCook, three pans), “heavy-weight steel construction” (Amazon Basics), “rust resistant” (Elbee).

And a rim is genuinely where the mechanism lives. Warping is a thin sheet taking a permanent set when the hot part expands against the cool part past the yield point. A rolled or beaded rim stiffens the whole panel in bending — the same reason a sheet of paper holds its shape once you fold an edge on it. The rim is the structural member of a shallow steel pan.

But no thickness is published. Gauge is a number and no item on this shelf gives one — “heavy-duty aluminized steel” is the whole of it here, and the shelf’s other four phrases for the same thing are equally numberless.

Nor is a weight. This is one of four items on the shelf with no catalog weight, so there is not even a proxy. For reference the maker’s own 12-cup muffin pan is 794 g, the GoodCook 9 × 5 is 268 g, and the MegaGrip 8 × 8 is 310 g.

And the one cause of warping that is in your hands is thermal shock: let the pan cool before it meets water. Nothing on this shelf says so.

Dishwasher safe, with no caveat — and that is the outlier

“DISHWASHER SAFE: for easy cleanup”

Four words, on both KitchenAid pans, with nothing qualified.

The shelf, on washing:

KitchenAid, both pans — “DISHWASHER SAFE”, no caveat GoodCook, three pans — “dishwasher safe… hand washing is recommended for longer-lasting use”, and the 8 × 4 set sharpens it to “but hand-washing is recommended” Amazon Basics, $31.99 — “Hand wash for best results”, no dishwasher claim at all Elbee, $59.99 — “Dishwasher safe and rust resistant”, the shelf’s only mention of rust GoodCook 13 × 9 and Sur La Table — nothing either way

Aluminized steel is the material with the best case for the unqualified claim, because the thing a dishwasher does to plain carbon steel is rust it at every break in the coating, and the aluminum layer does not rust.

What a dishwasher still does to any of them is attack the non-stick film — hot, alkaline, abrasive, repeatedly. The honest reading of the whole shelf is GoodCook’s: the machine is safe for the pan and hand washing lasts longer.

One habit for this pan in particular: dry it immediately rather than letting it drain. The aluminized layer protects the steel where it is intact; a cut edge or a deep scratch is still bare steel underneath.

What is not published

No oven temperature limit, behind “stands up to high heat” in the description. Only the Amazon Basics set (428 °F, exactly 220 °C) and the Elbee set (420 °F, plus convection) publish a figure, and many bread recipes call for 450 °F, above both.

No gauge or thickness, as above.

No weight, one of four items here without one.

No depth on the page. The catalog says 77 mm.

No handle projection, on the pan that sells its handles.

No metal-utensil claim, where the $5.99 GoodCook has one. A 9 × 5 loaf that catches at a corner gets a knife run round it, and this page does not say whether that is allowed.

No coating composition. “Swiss-engineered heavy-duty” names an origin and 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 capacity. The only dough-weight capacity on this shelf is on a disposable: the Waytiffer foil loaf pan at $9.99 publishes “2Lb”.

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

Availability

Read on the day this page was built: $13 at the American Amazon shop.

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