Redneck Recipe # 26 - Paper Baking Pans
I used to think that paper caught on fire all the time
It required several tries to get things right, but I finally baked my oatmeal/coconut/fruit bars in small all-paper baking pans. I had heard about them earlier, but had never used paper baking pans before now. In fact, every time I ever tried to bake anything in those little paper "cupcake" liner papers, the cakes stuck to the paper like crazy.
I looked up "paper baking pan" on the Internet and found a number of providers. A few of those merchants sold rectangular and square paper baking pans, but most of them sold only round pans.
What surprised me was that those paper pans were said to be capable of cooking things at temperatures of 400 to 450 degrees, Fahrenheit. The baking at such temperatures was said to be OK in both "regular" and microwave ovens.
I was discouraged to find that if I wanted to try out the use of paper baking pans I would have to purchase a whole case of the things – like 250 pans for almost $70. I did find one source that would sell me a dozen of the things for about 50 cents each, but the shipping charge was twice that. "Someday I will find some that I may be able to afford..." That’s what I thought, anyway.
Bless my pointy little head. I found a store, "Make-A-Cake," right close to my own neighborhood. The paper pans they stocked were quite small, but they would do for my messing around with paper pan baking for now. The dimensions were 3-1/2 inches wide by 7 inches long by 2 inches high, just big enough to hold 4 oatmeal/coconut/fruit bars; that is, about ¼ the output of my already proven recipe.
Off we went into the land of batter making.
1/2 cup uncooked rolled oats
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup dried blueberries
1/2 cup dried raisins
1/2 large apple, chopped (I used a really large apple)
2 whole eggs
3/8 cup vegetable oil or melted butter/margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
When everything was all nicely mixed together I spooned the batter equally into 4 buttered paper baking pans.
I then put the first two pans into the microwave oven and set the timer to 5 minutes and the power to 10 (high). Forget that! The dried fruit burned black and the batter part had lots of dark scorch marks throughout.
The next two pans went into the microwave oven with the timer set to 4 minutes and the power was reduced to half (50%, or 5). That seemed to do the job of baking the bars without burning or drying everything to a crisp.
The boss, my wife (kitchen owner), and I each ate a bar once the things cooled down, and they were just fine eating. Today is the "next day" and the things are still cake-moist and tasty.
So, it looks as though those little paper baking pans do a decent job of baking those oatmeal/coconut/fruit bars – 4 finished bars to a pan.
What is nice about using the paper baking pans is that I do not have to remove them from their pans to give the finished bars away – no more cutting them in the pan, lifting them out, and packing them into some other container for our friends to enjoy. Now they get their oatmeal/coconut/fruit bars almost "right out of the oven."
You can get to the original recipe article at this HubPages link.
Comments
Howdy Good Doctor bj - Well, that makes two of us. When I learned of those paper baking pans I was really surprised. They make the things mostly quite large, too - like for big angel food cakes and multi-layer cakes. I did learn, however, that you really do have to take it easy on the microwave time and power - something I had to learn the hard way after burning (charring) several of the early ones...
Gus :-)))
Thanks much for the info. Makes sense since we use cupcake papers. Appreciate the recipe, too--it looks easy.
RTalloni - Thanks for your most welcome read ! These paper baking pans are quite a lot (a really whole lot...) heavier weight than cupcake papers. they hold up pretty well, too, for I re-used the first ones in which I had burnt the bars when I first started to experiment.
Gus :-)))
What's the purpose? So you can throw it out and not clean a pan, or so it doesn't stick to the pan - just really big cupcake holders. I see you can hand them to people. Not sure I get it, but I'm intrigued.
Howdy Paul - The purpose for me is what you figured - I give lots of things like this to others and don't want to (1) give folks costly baking pans or (2) go through the exercise of repacking the baked stuff. And yes - these paper pans are analogous to big cupcake holders while also being considerably sturdier. I would be happy to use those aluminum cupcake holders but for the fact that you can't use them in a microwave, which is where I want to do this particular baking deal. Thanks for the read and the useful comment.
Gus :-)))
These sound delicious and it was fun reading your experience. I don't think I would ever think of baking in the microwave.
Hi Gus! I need to try those. I spray my cupcake and muffin paper liners with cooking spray and they don't stick (the kind with the flour in it). I am going to try your recipe for sure. Nice to see you!
Tammy
Hi Ddraigcoch - Well, they really taste great and, likely, are pretty good for you, too. I was like you in your not thinking of baking anything in the microwave until I read about it being easily possible in a microwave oven book from quite a few years ago... and I say it that way because this microwave cookbook and a second such book, both truly magnificent books with great cdolor illustrations and more, had no copyright notice or any date printed in or on them. (Seems strange to me) From what I read in those books, the power settings and timer settings in microwave cooking vary with the "wetness" of the ingredients, the shape of the cooking vessel and the vessel's composition, plus the amount of the material being cooked.
But, no date printed in $15 books of such high quality truly did surprise me - and I never realized that dates were absent until after I read your comment, above, and began to tell you about "how old" were those books.
Gus :-)))
Hello Tammy - Good to hear from you !!! I tried baking these things in those paper "cupcake" deals. I did not think to spray them first, so everything stuck to the bottoms (the sides freed up OK).
As to the ingredients used for these good snack bars, you might want to omit the cayenne pepper or cut back on the amount. Some folks don't like the "bite" of the pepper like we old rednecks do...
Gus :-)))
Learned something new today! Paper baking pans! Who knew? (Well, I guess some are just more "in the know" than me...like you!) Haha! They would make good gift containers although I wonder about the expense verses just using plastic wrap or other packaging in comparison?
I like the pass-it-to-a-friend with no cleanup as a great gift idea. If the pans are recyclable, so much the better.
Like the recipe too - Rated up, several buttons.
Hey Gus, the paper pans look so...real. Paper, and they can withstand high temp? Amazing! So they come in bigger sizes for larger cakes? Your oatmeal recipe seems delicious. Good cooking anyway.
Hi Peggy - I was happy to learn of those paper baking pans - surprised, yes - happy, yes. As to cost, the paper pans save bakers the cost of owning glass or metal pans, of cleaning the things after use, and of having to re-wrap the baked goods after removing them from some sort of "permanent" baking pan. I priced paper baking pans (8x8 inch size) at about 32 cents each in case quantity. I found some for 50 cents each, but the shipping cost brought the price to $1.50 each - kinda high. The little pans I got locally cost almost 90 cents each, but I could buy 6 of them and those with no shipping cost. My guess is that baking in one pan (glass or plastic in the microwave) and then re-wrapping would cost about the same, but the work of re-wrapping is avoided as is cleanup.
Gus :-)))
Hello Patti - These paper baking pans are supposed to be for one-time use, but I did re-cycle the ones in which I had burnt everything to charcoal (!). As do you, I really like this recipe, too.
Gus :-)))
Hello, Good Friend chspublish - Those rascally little pans are nicely done up - fancy decorations on their outsides and smooth finish on their insides. The pans are quite heavy-duty such that they will not deform during the baking. Here is a link you can use to see a number of different shaps and sizes. The source is one of a number of sources. I can also agree with you that the snack bars are tasty - I just ate one of them.
Gus :-)))
Hello again chspublish (and everyone else, too) - Here is that link I forgot to attach to the above comment...
http://plasticcontainercity.com/Baking_Molds.htm
And here, too, is a link to my friends at Make-A-Cake here in Houston, Texas...
http://www.makeacakehouston.com/
My apologies - Gus :-)))
Thanks for the try and info on results. I will try the pans for my bread! Extremely cool!
Howdy Hyphenbird - I can't think of a good reason for bread not to work for you in the microwave, but I would not want to predict the necessary power level or baking time. One of my old microwave cookbooks tells me that a sizeable yeast-rise coffee cake bakes for 10 to 13 minutes at 70% power. It wants yeast-rise cheese bread to go for 12 to 14 minute3s at half-power. The books says to let the bread stand in its dish for 5 minutes after it is done.
I just made some molasses/pecan/fruit/oatmeal bars using two pans sized like in the above article, plus 2 large cupcake paper things (because I had lots of batter and had run out of paper baking pans. The one pan had 2X the batter held by the second pan so that, when it baked, it filled the little pan to the very top. Did everything for 4 minutes at half power and everything came out OK. I can't explain why the one did not take longer to bake, but it was done using the same parameters.
Have fun, and let me know how the bread deal works.
Gus:-)))
Paper baking pans - who knew! you have wide-ranging interests, friend Gus, and I do so enjoy your recipe hubs.
Hi Elle (Red Elf) - I like food. I like experimenting around. I like to try stuff that I never tried before. I hate washing dishes. Ergo - paper baking pans for new recipes of good stuff to eat, with the recipes needing lots of tinkering and discovery.
Gus :-)))
Some new cooking idea for sure! Will have the cook on this one for bread pronto. Thanks Gus.
Hi Alastar - It was a new cooking idea to me, anyway. I don't have a clue how it might work for regular bread baking, but I suspect that it will do OK there, too.
Have fun.
Gus :-)))
Gus The Redneck. Hi. These paper baking pans sound like a great idea. I have never heard of or seen them until now.
I'm guessing that it would be trial and error to start with.
Your recipe sounds and looks wonderful.
Will be trying it for sure.
Thanks for sharing it with us. Voted up. :) :)
Howdy oliversmum - I am surely not any kind of "expert" as to baking stuff, and when I learned that you could bake things in the microwave I had to give it a try - and it worked fairly well. Next came the discovery of paper baking pans. Surprise # 2! And, yes, the recipe is a tasty one. Have fun.
Gus :-)))
drbj 11 months ago
Paper baking pans? Unbelievable. The stuff I learn from your hubs, Gus. Never dreamed you could bake food in the oven or the microwave on paper and not have the fire department responding forthwith. Thanks for the info.