Gadget of the week: The Baker's Edge Baking Pan

Posted on April 07, 2006 at 09:13 AM

A few weeks ago, the head of the Culinary Arts Dept. and I found ourselves in the kitchen cooking up a batch of brownies. This blog is a sucker for a good brownie and is always thinking of ways to make them better. So while we were mixing, I pondered on how to make a batch of brownies where every piece could be just like a corner piece. You know, the ones cooked to a chewy perfection? I thought about a type of pan that had channels, or extra walls, that would allow for the maximum amount of surface area for each brownie to cook. Kind of like a brownie baking pan that resembled a rat's maze. But I quickly discarded my idea as hogwash and thought nothing more of it.

That was up until about a week later when I was reading the my friend Lisa's blog who happened to post about an amazing find.

And there it was, right in front of me. The Baker's Edge. I couldn't believe it. It was as if the brownie pan of my dreams was finally realized, just as I had imagined it a few weeks earlier.

The Baker's Edge is the spawn of Matt Griffin, whose love of corner brownies produced a cooking device that evenly cooks throughout the whole pan. It's patented sidewalls provide 70% more surface area, which is the secret ingredient behind the pan's success.

Now, I know I've pretty much focused on brownies up to this point, but don't limit yourself by only baking brownies in this pan. You can pretty much cook anything in it that you can in a regular pan. Though the ideal dishes to cook would be those who tend to have soggy middles (cobblers, pot pies, lasagna) and need to be baked longer which usually ends up drying out the edges. I had long given up on cooking lasagna in a regular 13"x9" baking dish due to the lasagna falling apart as soon as a piece was removed from the pan. But with the Baker's Edge you get a neat, perfectly cooked piece every time.

The baker's edge also comes with a Spatula custom made to fit in between the sidewalls so you don't have to worry if your regular spatula will fit. And another neat feature is the recessed handles on each end of the pan which allow you to flip the pan over to empty it's contents, all-the-while still giving you a handle to pick the pan back up again.

For more in-depth info, check out the Baker's Edge Benefits and Features page (PDF link) which also lists a few recipes to try out in your new pan.

I should also mention that the Baker's Edge was one of twelve ideas (out of 19,000+ entries submitted) selected in 2004 for Ideas Happen, a contest to give young entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 - 29 a chance to pitch their ideas in hopes of making them a reality. Matt Griffin, inventor of the Baker's Edge, received a prize of $25,000 which helped him on his way to "making his Ron Popeil-esque dream a reality".

The Baker's Edge Baking Pan - Buy from amazon

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Comments

I stumbled across your blog this morning. Thanks for the brilliant write up! Your process of thinking up the Baker's Edge is exactly what I did about 7 years ago. What I didn't realize then was how long it actually takes to get an idea into the marketplace. I am more than thrilled to see folks "getting it" (both literally and figuratively).

Best Regards,
Matt Griffin (Inventor of the Baker's Edge)
President
GriffInvent Inc.

Posted by: Matt | April 12, 2006 08:26 AM

I am sorry but I hate corner pieces. For me the middle pieces are the ones that are chewy. The corners and outside edges always get over cooked even when the middle isnt done yet. I'm a guy that loves the chewy middle. If there was a pan that every piece was like a middle I would buy it.

Posted by: Bulldog | December 4, 2011 10:08 AM