I had a bride and groom come today , and had some of my tins out to give them a visual of how their cake might look. The Groom asked how I kept my pans looking so new looking , do I replace them often, the tin he was talking about is one I have passed down from my Mum , the couple that she originally bought the tin to make their engagement cake , just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. I guess things were made to last in those days.


So what is your oldest piece of equipment.?

I also have an old cake pan. Not sure of the exact age but I do know that it belonged to my Nanna who, if she was alive, would be 88 years young! I also have one of her old rolling pins and mum has some of her old knives. Like you said, things were made to last (and were cared for so they did).

Shell , my darling mum is now 87 , I was very happy this year when she announced that my fruitcake was better than hers. As she has been making fruitcakes since she was seven , and has made all of the family cakes for several generations , I took it as the highest compliment.

As you said things were cared for , I am still very careful with how I wash and dry my tins.

Until retirement I had a tin that was something like 60-80 yrs old. I also had some paste color that was nearly as old as that!

Wow...I can't match that! The oldest pan I have is a 6" round...the first supply I bought and it is 36 years old. It is a little beat up but it was stored away for quite a few years when I took a break from caking! But it still puts out a pretty nice little cake!

I have all my mother's cake tins, perfectly cared for by her, many of which are over fifty years old.
But my oldest cake tins are the gift of a long-time family friend, who had no daughters/daughters-in-law/grandchildren who were interested in cooking/baking/cake decorating. Two of these tins are seventy-plus years old. I admit they do look a trifle battered but still cook a perfectly alright cake.

I bake my Pineapple Upside Down Cake in a deep 10 inch, wonderfully seasoned iron frying pan that belonged to my favorite grandmother. I'm guessing it is from the 1930's or early 40's.

I also was having trouble with my tried and true pound and angel food cakes. I bought the best rated ones on Amazon when mine warped. I could never make them right.

Then last year, my mom had a stroke and we moved her to a more suitable apartment. I unpacked the kitchen and was raiding her pans. She had this old tube pan from when I was little. That was the 1960's. I took it home and now once again I can make the old favorites.

She has my great grandmother's set of pots from the 1920's. I have dibs on them. I remember the puddings and fillings this excellent southern cook made. They don't even make pots that thick anymore. I have All-Clad and they are nowhere close. I think I'll ask for them again now. She's easy.

This is one of the reasons , I love baking and decorating it is the connection to those that have gone before us , either through pans passed down , a shared love of baking or even a recipe book.

My Mum has a recipe book , from 1937 from the CWA ( Country Womens Association ) it is more or less a cooking bible here in oz . The fruitcake recipe I use for wedding and christmas cakes is from that book. It is the only thing that I actually asked mum to put in her will to come to me when the time comes.

Fruitcake tins from about 1955. They are tinned steel and they only need to be handwashed and dried carefully.