What is a Rimmed Baking Sheet?

When baking, you must choose a suitable baking sheet, or else you won’t get desirable results. The best baking sheet dramatically depends on what you are baking. In this case, it can either be a flat baking pan or a rimmed baking sheet.

Since most recipes call for rimmed baking sheets, that’s what we have researched and focused on this in the post.

A rimmed baking sheet is a pan with rising and rolling edges. Most of them are made from aluminized steel or stainless steel.

The raised edges are approximately 1 inch high, making it uneasy for food or boiling juices to spill off the pan into your oven. It is also called a jelly-rolled pan, best for bread and cookies.

This feature is a considerable benefit as it means you won’t have to worry about your oven getting dirty every time you are baking. 

On top of that, the rimmed edges help in increasing the pan capacity to accommodate more food and save on baking or roasting time.

Also, these rims are usually thick to add stability to your pan. This makes them more resistant to warping than their counterpart – the flat pans.

Finally, some of them (rimmed pans) come with handles so that you have no hard times when transferring them to or from the hot oven (you won’t worry about sustaining burns).

What do you use a rimmed baking sheet for?

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Supposedly, you thought that rimmed and flat baking pans work precisely the same, but that’s not true.

Their difference in design means they are suited for different baking purposes. In other words, it means what you can bake perfectly with a rimmed sheet may be hard to bake properly with flat baking sheets.

With this in mind, you may wonder what food is good to bake with what pan? Going straight to the answer, rimless baking pans are suited for baking cookies. On the other hand, rimmed baking sheets are pretty versatile and can do several things.

For example, they are suitable for roasting since their raised edges prevent juices from spilling. Additionally, they are ideal for broiling, toasting, and baking. Finally, they can be used together with wire racks to hold foods before or after frying.

What size is a rimmed baking sheet?

Before buying any rimmed baking sheet, you should know the measurements first. We insist on this because the size of your sheet will determine the quantity of food it can hold and whether it will fit in your oven.

A full-size pan measure 18 inches wide by 26 inches long. It holds a wide range of food, thus saving your time when baking. However, on the downside, it may not fit in your oven, mainly if you use a mini oven.

On the other hand, a quarter sheet measures 9 inches wide by 13 inches long. This will fit perfectly in any oven. Though it calls common size, it holds less food. It may not be ideal for baking a significant quantity of food.

For convenience, baking experts recommend going for a standard-size rimmed baking sheet. It measures just about 12 inches wide by 17 inches long. In some cases (depending on some specific models and brands), it will measure 13 inches wide by 18 inches long)

If you have to buy anything huge, ensure you confirm the size of your oven.

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How deep is a rimmed baking sheet?

As aforementioned in this post, the significant difference between a rimmed and rimless sheet is the raised, rolled edges. These are meant to prevent the juice from spilling, so they should be as deep as possible.

Unfortunately, many people complain of shallow sheets that end up spilling juices making their oven untidy. This is an undesirable issue that top manufacturers are addressing.

In their attempt to resolve this, most of them have adopted a 1-inch depth as the standard depth of baking sheets.

Such a depth doesn’t only address the issue of juice spillage but also increases more space for accommodating more food and wire racks where applicable.

What can I use if I don’t have a rimmed baking sheet?

Imagine you woke up early and headed to the kitchen to bake a recipe that calls for a rimmed baking sheet but saw it isn’t in usable condition; maybe you left it unwashed, or you just found it rusted. What would you do?

Give away with baking? No! There are some dishes you can turn to and continue with your baking. The good thing is that you probably own them. They include;

· Casserole Dish/ Baking dish

You got it right! Your 9 inches wide by 13 inches (or bigger) casserole or baking dish can perfectly substitute for your rimmed baking sheet.

The good thing about most casserole and baking dishes is that they have handles for ease of handling when putting in or removing from the oven. Also, they have lids if you want to cover your food as it cooks. This helps to trap and retain heat and hence facilitating faster cooking.

· Cast-Iron Skillet

If you don’t have a rimmed baking sheet or large baking dish, you should at least have an oven-proof cast-iron skillet. It’s not only suited for cooking frittatas or searing steaks, but also for roasting or baking. Compared to a regular rimmed baking sheet, the cast-iron skillet has the same thick walls and raised edges. Also, they conduct heat evenly to ensure your food is uniformly cooked.

· Braiser

For many reasons, your braiser is a good alternative for a rimmed baking pan. For example, they are almost the same size, and the braiser has a high heat capacity to withstand oven baking.

Also, it is approximately 1-inches deeper, meaning it will not spill any content in your oven. On top of this, it has unpatrolled heat retention meaning it will cook faster.   Finally, it has handles on its sides so you can handle it easily.

How tall is a rimmed baking sheet?

Now that we all know rimmed sheets are baking sheets with raised, rolled edges, it is good to understand how high these pans should be. This knowledge will be helpful when buying your pan.

The height of the baking pan is the same thing we refer to when we talk about its depth. The only difference is that when you think about the height, you consider how high it is. On the other hand, when you talk of depth, you are referring to how low it is from its top point.

We already said that the standard depth is 1 inch, and so is the height.

Can you bake cookies on a rimmed baking sheet?

If you remember keenly, we began this article by defining some things you can do with a rimmed baking pan. We said that these are multitaskers, and they will do almost anything you want.

So if you are wondering whether you can bake cookies with them, the direct answer is YES. However, the cookies baked with rimmed pans are somewhat different from those baked using a flat pan. They cook slowly, which can be attributed to how the heat currents are distributed.

Heat currents from the bottom of the pan sweep over the cookie for the rimless pan, promoting quicker baking. On the contrary, in a rimmed baking pan, heat currents are blocked by raised edges and directed to the oven instead of the cookies.

When would you use a rimmed baking sheet?

To determine the best plan for your baking, the number one thing to think about is what type of food you intend to bake. Is it something that contains juice?

If yes, you will need to go for nothing other than a rimmed baking sheet. It is suited for such foods because it has raised edges that ensure no juice spills on your oven.

Additionally, it has an enormous capacity than its equal-size flat pan. Hence, it is an excellent option to turn to when baking a significant quantity of food.

3 Best best-rimmed baking sheets

Wrapping Up

Now that you have the precise answer to your question ‘what is a rimmed baking sheet?’ and the benefits of using it. Why would you want to continue limiting yourself to a flat pan?

We recommend upgrading to the best-rimmed baking sheets and taking your baking experience to the next level.