Baking cakes in foil pans

Actually the foil reflects much of the heat away from the pan so cakes actually come out with a lighter crust.

Once you get the pan into the oven, it will bake just fine. If you're using a large pan, you may need to use a peel to get the pan into the oven (sometimes the larger pans will buckle from the weight of the batter). I use them fairly often. You may want to check for doneness

5 minutes before you usually do, especially if you usually bake in Pyrex. The lighter weight pans heat up more quickly than the Pyrex.

I don't suggest using the foil pans for roasting a bird, unless you put a cookie sheet underneath it to keep it from buckling and dumping pan drippings all over.

jenn

-- Jenn Ridley : snipped-for-privacy@chartermi.net

Sorry. Foil reflects light, not heat. It's aluminum, same as pots and pans. They aren't ever described as reflecting heat. Because they don't.

Nice shiny copper skillets don't reflect heat. Polished stainless, sandwiched, bake sheets don't reflect heat. They can reflect a small percentage of visible, radiant heat like from a glowing-element heater situated in front of a highly polished reflective curved surface. But that's not what's at work in an oven.

Pastorio

LOL!! I once had a roommate who would get so insistent that, when using aluminum foil over a casserole, I should always put the shiny side down, or otherwise the heat would be reflected away. I said, "I'm not cooking from the lightbulb in the oven."

Of course, this was the same person who would never set the timer on the microwave. - just hit "9999" and then stand there watching the wall clock.

Then, I suppose that water should always be boiled slowly, not fast, so it doesn't get that burnt taste. ;)

It also reflects heat.

It also reflects heat.

OK. How does the shiny side of foil reflect heat? Any different than the glass or corning ware pan, or the pot on the stove, or the baking dish? Explain yourself.

I don't have to because I know I'm right.

You may go now. And please take your misinformation with you.

I offered a rationale for disagreeing with your erroneous statement. You say, "I know I'm right" with no further comment. Guess who's position makes more sense and is more logical?

Pastorio

I once had a rookie cook in one of my restaurants who I saw stirring a pot of water that was on to boil. I asked him why he did that and he said, "It helps it to boil faster when you stir the cold water on top down to the bottom."

He didn't make it in my operation.

Pastorio

Do a Google search using the terms foil pans reflect heat.

I did as you suggested. *All* the hits were from non-scientific sites, with the words sounding like they were written by the same person. You need to evaluate the sources of your information better than you did. None were authoritative, and merely parroted each other.

Now look at the technical sites...

"If metal is a conductor of heat, why is it that aluminum foil will insulate food and reflect heat? "Aluminum may be a good conductor of heat, but its a terrible emitter or absorber of thermal radiation. When you wrap food in aluminum foil, you dramatically reduce that food's ability to lose heat via radiation if it's hotter than its surroundings or its ability to gain heat via radiation if it's colder than its surroundings. Aluminum foil doesn't have much effect on heat transferred to or from the food via conduction or convection because aluminum itself is a good conductor of heat."

"...terrible emitter or absorber of thermal radiation" means that it doesn't reflect it, it simply doesn't absorb it. It doesn't make it go back where it came from, nor does it capture it.

See that "good conductor of heat" thing? Not "reflector" of heat.

Here's another one: "2.132 Reflect radiant heat waves Heat tissue paper with a magnifying glass, as in 2.131. Note the distance from the reading glass to the tissue paper. Put a tilted mirror half way between the lens and the paper. Feel with your hand above the mirror until you find the point where the heat waves are focussed. Hold a piece of paper tissue at this point. The paper ignites."

That wouldn't happen in the dark. Light is radiant heat. It reflects light. It doesn't reflect heat as heat, it just doesn't absorb radiant energy well, nor does it transmit it. You say it reflects heat, so I'm sure you'd closely wrap your hand in a single layer of foil and hold a candle under it such that the flame was 1/2 inch below it. It'll reflect the radiant heat (we call that light) but the conducted heat and convected heat will fricassee your hand. That's why aluminum cookware works well. It conducts heat very well; it doesn't reflect it back towards the flame or the coil.

"23.00 Heat & temperature, internal energy & heat, heat and the first law of thermodynamics Heat is a form of energy measured in Joule. The first law of thermodynamics states when other forms of energy are converted to heat, or when heat is converted to other forms of energy, there is no loss of total energy. The second law of thermodynamics states heat always flows from hot bodies to cold bodies. "

Note that aluminum is right behind gold and copper in its capacity to conduct heat (the last column of the chart). Silver isn't mentioned, but it's at the top of the list.

"Clearly in selecting a conductor these are very significant differences

- so the best materials are those which lie low towards the bottom of the metals bubble, such as copper and aluminium. Gold is excellent, but it is so expensive it is way off the scale of the chart. Even so, it is used for electrical contacts in microcircuits.

"Finally, thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity are closely related - as the underlying physics is similar. The electrical resistivity chart also gives an indication of thermal properties - with thermal insulators towards the top (polymers and foams, and ceramics) and the good thermal conductors - metals - at the bottom."

This means that heat and electricity are treated similarly by metals. Aluminum is a good conductor of electricity, so it's also a good conductor of heat. As nothing reflects electricity, nothing reflects heat, either.

You might want to consider why there are charts for conduction of heat, but none for reflection of heat.

This whole issue reminds me of that silly device with a hemispherical mirror (like a bowl) into which you were supposed to put ice to reflect the cold upwards and chill things in a small basket at the mouth of the bowl. It was a physical impossibility.

Now you go find out what "heat" is and is not. And learn the difference between radiant heat and conducted or convected heat is. And don't go to cooking hobbyist sites for lessons in physics.

Pastorio

Bob (this one) wrote: s foil pans reflect heat.

You can quote as much so called scientific proof as much as you want but I know from experience that shiny aluminum baking pans reflect heat. Besides, there's a big difference between the way a pan heats up on a stove and the way a pan heats up in an oven. A pan on a stove heats up entirely by conduction. A pan in an oven heats up by means of radiation and indirect conduction, that is the oven's heat source heats the air inside the oven and the heat from the air is conducted into the pan. Since light colored materials reflect radiant energy, part of the radiant heat inside the oven is reflected away from the pan.

Hey, moron. This kind of sneering dismissal of researched and documented information marks you for an ignorant fool. When there's data from several reliable sources and you say, "Oh, no, I know better," you end up looking like a blowhole driven by ego and the obviously mistaken belief that it's correct just because you believe it.

Yes. Scientific proof. As opposed to your confused ramblings that show you have no idea about heat, its movement and reflectivity.

So you say. And you *know* it's reflecting heat rather than simply not transmitting it. What a wonderful thermal effects laboratory you must have.

You *know* what's happening, and then you offer the stuff below as "proof." Hilarious.

So the red glow from the electric coil isn't radiant heat. And the very visible gas flame isn't radiant heat. Got it. I bet your physics teacher is proud of you.

I bet that's why you're perfectly happy to hold your hand right next to the pan while it cooks. No radiant heat means none released to the air, right?

There's no such thing as "indirect conduction." Heat is either conducted or it isn't. There's a grand total of three ways for heat to move - radiation, conduction, convection. There's no "indirect" way for heat to move.

Um, *visible* radiant energy and infra-red. The energy radiating from hot oven walls isn't visible; too far down on the electromagnetic spectrum (You do know what that is, right?). That light-colored business refers to "albedo." And you need to learn the difference between "shiny" and "light-colored."

You didn't read anything from those science sites at all, did you...?

Like it says above: "You might want to consider why there are charts for conduction of heat, but none for reflection of heat."

We're done with this. You haven't the remotest idea what you're talking about. The very simple fact is that you're wrong. The next fact is that you aren't interested in learning. You're over your head with this subject.

For future reference, one person's anecdotal experience is *never* proof of an assertion. Not yours, not mine.

Pastorio

PLONK

You just can't admit that you're wrong.

Don't bother posting a reply because you've been killfiled.