Nordic Ware 3 Piece Baker’s Delight Set

Son charolas de buena calidad, buena compra!

Study, hold shape, fit in my oven, and is great for baking a lot of cookies at one time (which saves time), or baking a large sheet cake. My baked good cook evenly. Best of all, the pan is easy to clean.

However – PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT – if you run your lovely shiny bare aluminum pan through the dishwasher (or leave your bf unsupervised while he’s loading the dishwasher) it WILL discolor because of the chemicals involved. Mine is now a gorgeous iridescent purple/tarnished silver color. This does NOT affect its usability, for all the people having issues with this in the reviews.
I love my Nordicware sheet pans, they’re heavy, durable, don’t warp, heat evenly, are easy to grasp because of the thick rolled edge, and are easy to clean without resorting to the dishwasher – if you’ve done something unconscionable like bake a cheesy saucy pizza on it without a parchment paper, just give it a soak in soapy water for a bit and scrub with a plastic scrubby or Scrub Dudly-type sponge.
These pans are worth the investment, and if you take care of them, they could feasibly last for generations. 😊

These are great change from my older pans with textured surface that I never could clean good enough. And that were few inch too short on both directions despite of stating “half sheet”.
These are big enough to bake 2 8in cake layers and cutting leftovers on a side, so now baking a multi tiered cake takes half the time, finally.
I can’t find a silicone mat of proper size for it, except for ridiculous 60bucks or so, I have no clue why, but it has nothing to do with the pan itself.
These are very good quality, they don’t bulge or budge, they stay clean metal, they’re light weight but sturdy and overall i see nothing to complain about. I don’t believe the logo is of any trouble for cleaning, definitely not as trouble as when the whole surface is textured… but I haven’t cooked anything really sticky just yet. After few uses they still look like new with no staining or any traces of use or washing. Totally worth it and my old pans go to trash after I tried these!

After months (close to a year) of searching and trialing different baking sheets, I have found the perfect (or two perfect) ones for your consideration. I am hoping this to be a very informative review and I hope you will like it! I hope this is going to be helpful to you. Learn from my experience (and trial and error) so you buy the correct baking sheet the first time—save you time, money, and energy.

This review is going to focus on two of my favorite brand’s QUARTER SHEET BAKING SHEETS. The results may or may not apply to HALF SHEETS or any other sizes. Why? Because a manufacturer may make their products differently for different product lines. Just like Ford may make good truck but not their sedans, or Subaru makes good SUVs but not necessarily pickups. It’s just an analogy! Anyway, Nordic and Vollrath are being compared here. I didn’t get the Chicago Metallic brand… maybe next time!!

To start – I baked side-by-side using both brands and here are my findings:

They are both “standard sized” quarter sheets – but one is slightly larger than the other. The Vollrath brand is slightly larger (or perhaps Nordic is slightly smaller??). Your “standard size” quarter-sheet baking rack will sit perfectly inside the Vollrath sheet flush and flat. On the other hand, the same rack will not sit flush in Nordic pan. In fact, you will have to very carefully balance the rack on the edge of the Nordic quarter-sheet … and if you but it just a little . .. . slush~ the rack will fall into the pan or fall off entirely.

See the attached photos. So, is backing rack an important feature for your particular bake job? If yes, then you will have a hard time using the Nordic brand—either that or you have to buy purposefully smaller sized baking rack than what is “standard sized.” If not, who cares. I do need a baking rack for many of the things I bake—a rack that falls off easily is not acceptable to me. But who needs a rack for cookies? Wings? You have to think about this aspect for your own purposes.

Manufacturing: the Nordic pan was perfect in attention to details. The photo of the back of the quarter-sheet pan shows you how each manufacturer rolled their heavy duty aluminum. Nordic rolled theirs much more perfectly and more detailed. See photo. On the other hand, Vollrath pan was kind of …Meh~ Like as if the manufacturer said “that’s good enough of a roll.” Does the bad rolling job make the Vollrath pan useless? No. The baking result is not impacted from my test-baking. But there’s something to be said about perfection.

True Heavy Weight?: Both brands claim to be “Heavy Duty.” Check out the photos: Vollrath weighs in at 348 grams while the Nordic weighs in at 460 grams. If you do the math, this means the Nordic quarter sheet is approximately 30% more material! Yes, there’s 30% more aluminum in the Nordic quarter-sheet than the Vollrath product. That’s “30% heavier” duty.. I suppose you can put it that way. But the baking result with the Vollrath is not impacted (no warping, food bakes out equally on a side-by-side bake test). So is the extra 30% more material necessary? Thin baking sheet has the problem of bending and warping during baking (this is a known problem). If the product does NOT bend of warp… 348 gm vs. 460 gm ? Hmm. I dunno.

But then again .. . Nordic is heavier weight, great, but it doesn’t accommodate a “standard sized” baking rack!!! Which is more important?? Now that’s where you need to decide for yourself.

If you bake often foods that require a rack, you absolutely need a smaller rack or use the Vollrath quarter sheet to accommodate standard quarter-sheet racks. The Nordic will not fit those. On the other hand, if your bake often foods that sit directly on the pan and do not need a rack, or only uses the rack sporadically, you might be better off getting the Nordic quarter sheet and enjoy its 30% heavier weight and better machine job / better attention to details. Or get both – one Vollrath for one job, one Nordic for another job.

OR, go find a smaller quarter-sheet rack (say, 1/8” smaller each side) to accommodate the Nordic quarter-sheet, then you have the best of both worlds. But that means you have to buy “less than standard sized” baking rack by about 1/8” smaller each side. Why can’t just “standard sized” things work standardly? Why don’t they just work perfectly? That was my frustration with Nordic quarter-sheet this entire time. I love that quarter-sheet but whenever I needed to use a rack, Nordic became useless to me.

Thickness: You can see from the photos that the Nordic quarter-sheet is slightly thicker than the Vollrath. This came from being 30% more weight/material. I am not detecting the benefit of this extra thickness. Better heat retention? More anti-warping? More stable? Heavier? Stronger?

Other things: Both quarter-sheets are NOT (I repeat, NOT) safe in dishwasher. They both need to be hand washed. They both do NOT come seasoned and they are NOT non-stick. Your best bet is put down a sheet of silicon baking sheet. I personally don’t recommend aluminum foil (but that’s what everyone does). My recommendation against aluminum foil is the excessive intake of aluminum which may be associated with Alzheimer’s disease. (This is not a medical preach, please use your own research). I simply recommend you use a silicon baking mat instead of an aluminum foil bottom to avoid getting even more aluminum in your diet. I do NOT recommend baking directly on either Nordic or Vollrath quarter-sheets: food spot will be permanently baked into the pans, black scorch marks and carbon deposits will permanently cook into the aluminum sheets and there is no easy reversal (if at all). I know, it’s only $15 a quarter-sheet so it’s not too expensive. I happen to like my things to last for years. 🙂

I hope this has been helpful. Write me comments if you need to ask more questions. I am attaching 8 or 9 photos to help with this review. Thanks!! Happy shopping!!

I purchased two Nordic Ware Natural Aluminium Baker’s Half Sheet pans. I love Nordic Ware pans. They are an inexpensive pan for baking and they last for years. I never put them in the dishwasher, they are just so easy to clean with hand washing. My old Nordic Ware pans are over 25 years old and still look great. Natural Aluminium will stain if you don’t care for them properly so be careful with acidic products like dishwasher detergent and tomato products .

I would like to say something about Amazon, I ordered these pans and when they arrived the pans were badly damaged during shipping. I contacted Amazon, immediately by going to my order on the Amazon website and clicked return. Told them about the damage with just a few clicks I had everything I needed to make my return. I took my QR Code and the damaged pans to UPS and I was out of there in about 5 minutes. That was on Thursday and my new pans arrived on Friday. I want to thank Amazon for their customer service. It was a breeze!! Hopefully I will not have another damaged item but if I do I know that Amazon will take care of it quickly and professionally,