Baking Pans and Sheets
The main difference is the sides.
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Baking sheet / sheet pan: A large, flat metal pan with very low raised edges, usually about ½–1 inch. It's designed to spread food out in a single layer.
- Cookies
- Roasted vegetables
- Bacon
- Sheet-pan dinners
- Toasting nuts
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Baking pan: A broader term for a pan with higher sides, typically 1–3+ inches. The sides are important for containing batters, liquids, or foods that need to rise.
- Brownies
- Cakes
- Casseroles
- Lasagna
- Banana bread (in a loaf pan)
There's also a little terminology trap: "baking sheet" and "cookie sheet" aren't always the same thing. A cookie sheet may have only one or two raised edges (or none on the front) to make it easy to slide cookies off, while a sheet pan has raised edges on all four sides.
So, roughly:
Baking sheet → flat and shallow → good for things you spread out. Baking pan → deeper → good for things you contain.
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