Gem pans, anybody use them?

[awdye]

I've been noticing the odd gem pan around these past few months while cast iron hunting.  Not the muffin/pop-over models, but the shallow oval or square pans with 8-11 segments in them.

It got me wondering, why are they called gem pans?  Are the snack cakes "Dolly Madison Gems" based on this historic name?  Is a gem a small snack cake like a frosted brownie?  I understand a lot of people collect them, particularly the G. Filley ones, but does anybody actually use them these days?

If so, do you just whip up a cake mix and portion it out or are there recipes specifically for gems?

Thoughts?

[Steve_Stephens]

A gem is a sweet quick bread baked in a cup-shaped pan; i.e. a non-fermented bread.  A thick batter baked in the, usually, shallow gem pans.  I used to use mine frequently and you can make the muffins from boxed ingredients such as blueberry muffins, brownie mix or make your own.  Nut breads work well and all sorts of other recipes.  You might find some recipes in old cook books.  If it's a thick batter and needs to be baked in a form, it will probably work in the gem pans.  I would heat the pan in the oven (don't remember the temp.), grease the pan with butter and spoon in the batter.  Cook until golden brown on top or it seems like it's done.  Easy and I didn't get to scientific about anything.  The small pans are good for the last bit of batter.  The brownie cake pans work just as well as the shallow cups.  I've used all my Filleys but prefer the No.5 for ease of cleaning in running hot water and then dry the pan.  Try it, you will like what you can make but remember than baked goods often have a lot of fat and sugar and are fun to eat.  Too much fat and sugar aren't good for us.  (I have a hard time adhering to my recommendations).

Steve

[C. B. Williams]

Alan: I think Steve is "right on" on this subject. I recently wrote a post on "sweetbread" which is a sweet bread cooked in a skillet. I have not seen this cooked in many years. I grew up in the rural South. We did not have access every day to the "store bought" sweets that we do today. I think this was also true in many other parts of the country, therefore many sweets were made at home. Griswold had good success selling these type pans because of the time. The sweet section in a modern grocery store is bigger than any grocery store I grew up with so even when you got to the store there were not that many choices. I think the gem pans were used for almost anything the cook could dream up to bake in them, of course most cooks had their standard things. Lastly, I remember my grandmother (on Sundays and holidays)  using different molds to cook cornbread in. Just the normal weekday a skillet was used. C B

[awdye]

Thanks!  I was thinking quick bread, possibly coffee cake batter which is quite stiff, varied with miscellaneous additives (dried, fruit, nuts, etc...) to make gems, so that confirms that.  Alas, these things are fattening (thanks for the reminder Steve) and have to be limited to holidays and occasions I think.  Waffles and popovers are bad enough...

[Mike Shonfield]

I bought an old Gem pan today and wondered how I use it.  Then I found this old thread.

Then I found out what gems are:

I've always wondered what the difference was between a muffin and a gem. Gem recipes are always lumped in with the muffin recipes, and are made in muffin tins. So, what IS the difference? It's a little like Jello became synonymous with gelatin, though it was a brand name. The Gem Company made and sold kitchen equipment, including muffin tins. They were such a popular company that people started calling muffins cooked in their tins "gems".

But mine is called a French Roll Gem Pan I believe.  It doesn't really look suitable for muffins. What do I use it for? Yeast bread made into rolls?  A door stop?  ;D

Does anyone use this type of pan?

[Paul Okarma]

I have several NES gem pans; several different styles.  Mostly unmarked.  Several with gate marks.  They are great for cornbread.

http://www.food.com/bb/viewtopic.zsp?t=359353

[Chuck Fredrickson]

According to Haussler there is really no 'standard' to what the various muffin pans were called. Gem seems to be a common term applied to many shallow muffin pans. Here's a few recipes for french rolls and gems from Marion Heartland's complete Cook Book-1908.
 
I've used the french roll pan for both muffins and cornbread, works great..!.
 
~chuck

[Mike Shonfield]

Thanks Chuck, I think I'll try that french roll recipe.  Interesting how the eggs are added next day.

Pan is being cleaned and soon to be seasoned.

[Chuck Fredrickson]

Not sure why the eggs go in later, but this little [780pg] cook book has a certain 'health' flair to it that reflects the times.

~chuck

[Cheryl Watson]

For those that can't get those .jpgs to print, and want to save these recipes..... I have .pdf'd them... Thanks to Chuck! <hope you don't mind!!>   I luv these OLD cookbooks, most the time.... ::)

Now The Challenge of the day is define "Sweet Milk"   :)

Cause you need to know what kinda milk your using, to know whether to add baking soda vs. baking powder!  ;)

Now I want to use some of my French Roll pans and others to make individual shortcakes!! Not those spongy cake kind, but the real Pa Dutch buttermilk biscuit based kind! 8-)

[Cheryl Watson]

#2

[Mike Shonfield]

Oh Thank you Cheryl.

BTW my New England Pan has "Patent" on one handle and "Applied" on the other so I guess it is not a Griswold as on P 108 of the Blue Book.  :'(

[Cheryl Watson]

Well now you'll have to go cruising around the foundry pages.... betcha you'll find it somewhere in there.  :)  Several foundries produced them!

[Duke Gilleland]

My Grand Daddy use to say "Sweet milk, Butter milk, & Clabber" were the 3 variations of milk. Sweet milk being what you buy today as  Grade A, Pasturized, Homogenized milk.

[Chuck Fredrickson]

Duke - Grand Daddy was right... Term sweet is used to differentiate whole milk from the cultured products. Butter milk is what's left over after you make butter from the sweet milk. Clabber is soured un-pasturized sweet milk you eat w/ a spoon. Sort of like yogurt but NOT.

So... Sweet milk is the same as whole milk.

Cheryl - thanks for the pdf's. I had scanned them to pdf's but couldn't get the pages horizontal... so I went with the jpg's and stuck them together. How'dya do that...?.?.

~chuck

[Cheryl Watson]

Yup, and the buttermilk is acidic..
So I take it that 'clabber' is sour milk? :) (they say you can make your own sour milk by adding lemon juice or vinegar to our 'regular' milk!)

Ha...Ha.... great minds are thinkin' alike... posting at the same time! :)

I have Adobe Acrobat,,,, so I put the .jpegs on the desktop, opened them in Windows Live Gallery, and print them from there, which allows a whole lot of formating choices.... just print them to Adobe .pdf.... that's how I do most of the .pdf converisions, using the print function!  It usually works best, and gives more latitude in formatting preferences........! :)

[Chuck Fredrickson]

This thread got me motivated. Here's my nice old Davis gem in action: http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1345040020

~chuck

[Cheryl Watson]

Just restoring uploading some of the missing .pdf's above... :)