Sur La Table Bake Sale 9 × 5 in Loaf Pan

What the maker puts in writing

• “WHAT’S IN THE BOX: one 9-inch carbon steel loaf pan. Measures 9 x 5 inches.”
• “HAPPINESS IS HOMEMADE: Sur La Table Kitchen Essentials is all about making and sharing good good at home together…”
• “NONSTICK INTERIOR: ensures easy cleanup and exceptional food release when cutting and sharing slices of cakes or pies down to the last crumb”
• “CARBON STEEL BAKEWARE: ideal for uniform heat conduction and distribution to bake and brown evenly”
• “VIBRANT EXTERIOR: colorful pieces inspire creativity in any kitchen”
• From the name: “PFOA, PFAS, PTFE Free Nonstick”, “Linen White”
• Reference 141170.01 · Catalog: 127 × 229 mm (5 × 9.02 in) — no third dimension

The only page on this shelf that says what the coating is not

“PFOA, PFAS, PTFE Free” is in the product name, and nowhere else on this shelf is coating chemistry mentioned at all.

The three initialisms are nested rather than parallel. PFAS is the whole family of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. PTFE is one member — the polymer sold as Teflon, and the standard non-stick film on bakeware. PFOA is another, historically used as a processing aid in making PTFE and phased out of that use years ago.

So “PTFE free” is the claim that carries the weight. Without PTFE this is a ceramic or sol-gel type coating: a silica-based film, which is a materially different thing rather than a reformulation.

And the shelf’s own data is consistent with it.

This page makes no metal-utensil claim. GoodCook claims it on three of four pans — the 9 × 5 at $5.99 (“metal spatula safe”), the 13 × 9 at $9.99 (in the product name) and the 8 × 4 set at $11.99. Ceramic-type coatings are hard but brittle, and the usual guidance for them is no metal utensils and no high dry heat. The silence fits the chemistry.

Nobody else on this shelf says anything about what their coating is. KitchenAid calls it “Swiss-engineered heavy-duty” on both pans — a property, not a material. Amazon Basics, Elbee and the GoodCook pans say “nonstick” and stop.

What follows in practice: this is the pan to choose if fluoropolymers are the reason you are shopping, and the pan to line with parchment if you intend to cut in it.

Two dimensions, where every other steel pan here has three

The catalog reads 127 × 229 mm — 5.0 × 9.0 inches. That is the published size and nothing more. No depth.

Every other single steel pan on this shelf has three figures:

GoodCook 9 × 5, $5.99 — 279 × 152 × 65 mm KitchenAid 9 × 5, $14.99 — 279 × 152 × 77 mm GoodCook 13 × 9, $9.99 — 330 × 229 × 51 mm MegaGrip 8 × 8, $10.09 — 203 × 203 × 49 mm Waytiffer foil loaf, $9.99 — 216 × 114 × 64 mm

And depth is the figure a loaf pan is judged on. The two rival 9 × 5 pans differ by nearly half an inch — 65 mm against 77 mm, 2.6 inches against 3.0 — and neither publishes it either.

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 the whole shelf leaves you to guess.

There is a second oddity. The two rival 9 × 5 pans both catalog at 11.0 × 6.0 inches — two inches over in each direction — because a loaf pan is measured at the base and the rim flares. This one catalogs at exactly 9 × 5.

So its figure is either the base, like theirs, or simply the label repeated. The page gives no way to tell. Budget 11 × 6 inches of oven shelf for it, as for the others, and treat the depth as unknown.

Carbon steel, which is a real claim

“CARBON STEEL BAKEWARE: ideal for uniform heat conduction and distribution to bake and brown evenly” · “one 9-inch carbon steel loaf pan”

It names its material plainly, without an adjective in front of it.

The shelf’s vocabulary for the same thing: “heavy-duty gauge steel” (GoodCook, three pans) · “heavy-gauge steel” (MegaGrip) · “heavy-weight steel construction” (Amazon Basics) · “heavy-duty aluminized steel” (KitchenAid, two pans) · “rust resistant”, with no material at all (Elbee) · “100% aluminum foil” (the two Waytiffer packs).

“Carbon steel” is the honest plain description — and the one real material distinction on this shelf is the KitchenAid pans’ aluminized steel, which is carbon steel hot-dipped in an aluminum-silicon alloy. That matters twice over: aluminum conducts heat about three times better than steel, and the coating does not rust where it is intact.

Plain carbon steel rusts wherever its non-stick film is broken. Only the Elbee set at $59.99 mentions rust at all — “Dishwasher safe and rust resistant” — and this page does not.

No gauge, no thickness and no weight are published, which leaves “uniform heat conduction” unsupported by any number. This is also one of several items on the shelf with no catalog weight, so there is not even a proxy: for comparison the GoodCook 9 × 5 is 268 g and the KitchenAid 12-cup muffin pan is 794 g.

Linen White, which changes the bake and is sold as decoration

This is the lightest steel pan on the shelf.

Color on bakeware is not cosmetic. A dark surface absorbs radiant heat; a light or shiny one reflects it. At the same oven setting a dark pan runs hotter at the wall, browns the crust faster and finishes sooner; a pale pan gives a paler, softer bottom crust and a slower bake.

The shelf, lightest to darkest:

bare aluminum foil — the two Waytiffer packs, the most reflective here Linen White — this pan Contour Silver — the KitchenAid 9 × 5, aluminized and reflective Gray — all four GoodCook pans, the darkest Evergreen — the KitchenAid 12-cup muffin pan

What that makes this pan good and bad at. Good for a delicate cake or a sweet enriched dough that would over-brown. Less good for a crusty loaf, where you want the wall hot.

If a recipe was developed in a dark pan, expect a few more minutes in this one — or a slightly higher setting, with the caveat that no oven limit is published here, as for at least nine of the thirteen items on this shelf.

And the irony is that this is the one page selling color as a feature: “VIBRANT EXTERIOR: colorful pieces inspire creativity in any kitchen” — a bullet about a variable that genuinely affects baking, which says nothing about baking.

Two of five bullets are about the brand, not the pan

Bullet two is the brand’s mission statement, and it contains a typo in the published text: “making and sharing good good at home together”, then “roll up your sleeves, mix up a happy kitchen, and set the table for free-flowing conversations”.

Bullet five is “VIBRANT EXTERIOR: colorful pieces inspire creativity in any kitchen.”

That leaves three bullets of product information: what is in the box, that the interior is non-stick, and that the body is carbon steel.

For comparison at a lower price, the GoodCook 9 × 5 at $5.99 publishes five bullets and all five are about the pan — size and uses, heat distribution, scratch and warp resistance, the coating, and the dishwasher — plus metal spatula safety in the description.

And what this page does not publish anywhere:

No dishwasher statement. “Easy cleanup” is as far as it goes. The three GoodCook pans publish “dishwasher safe… hand washing is recommended for longer-lasting use”; both KitchenAid pans publish “DISHWASHER SAFE” flatly; Amazon Basics publishes “Hand wash for best results”; Elbee publishes “Dishwasher safe and rust resistant”. Four of thirteen items here say nothing, and this is one.

No metal-utensil claim, as above — which on a coating sold as PTFE-free is probably the right silence.

No warping claim, which is the shelf’s most repeated promise: GoodCook makes it three times, KitchenAid twice via a “uniquely designed rim”. This page makes it nought times, on a pan with no published gauge.

The useful line in bullet three is the one about serving: “exceptional food release when cutting and sharing slices of cakes or pies down to the last crumb”. It describes cutting in the pan, on the one pan here that never says you may use metal to do it.

What is not published

No depth, and no third catalog dimension, unlike every other single steel pan here.

No weight, one of several items here without one.

No gauge or thickness, like every item on this shelf.

No oven temperature limit. Only the Amazon Basics six-piece at $31.99 (428 °F, exactly 220 °C) and the Elbee eight-piece at $59.99 (420 °F, plus convection) publish one. A ceramic-type coating is the kind most sensitive to high dry heat, which makes the omission more pointed here than on a PTFE pan.

No dishwasher statement, as above.

No metal-utensil claim, as above.

No coating composition, only what it excludes. “PFOA, PFAS, PTFE Free” tells you what is not in it and not what is.

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: $12 at the American Amazon shop.

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