Jelly Roll Pan vs Baking Sheet vs Cookie Sheet
When it comes to the difference between a jelly roll pan and cookie sheet or baking sheet, there are many common questions: What is a jelly roll pan? Can you substitute a baking sheet for a jelly roll pan? How can you tell which baking pans are in your kitchen?
All these pans are frequently used in commercial kitchens, bakeries, and catering operations, so knowing the differences between them is crucial for any foodservice professional. Choosing the wrong pan can affect product texture and quality and can lead to batter and crumbs spilling inside the oven, which requires extensive cleanup.
Baking sheets, cookie sheets, and jelly roll pans can be very similar, and these terms are often used interchangeably in recipes for various types of baked goods. Some baking sheets come in several different styles that seem to overlap with other types of sheet pans, however, there are a few simple distinctions that can help you tell them apart.
Baking Sheets Explained
The term "baking sheet" or "sheet pan" refers to a wide range of flat, shallow baking pans that can be used for making buns, cookies, dinner rolls, jelly rolls, and other baked goods. These pans are usually rectangular and may have a shallow rim or lip on one or more sides. They can be solid to keep grease and crumbs contained, or they can be perforated to encourage airflow and evenly brown the bottoms of baked goods.
Unlike other types of baking pans with deeper sides (such as bread pans, muffin pans, Bundt pans, and cake pans), baking sheets aren't often used for baking runny batters or liquid-rich dishes because they can easily overflow. Instead, this design makes them perfect for baking cookies, biscuits, scones, and croissants. The low-rimmed design means heat and air are able to better circulate around food as it cooks, and users can more easily scoop finished goods off the baking sheet when they're done.
Some standard baking sheet sizes are full, three-quarters, two-thirds, half, quarter, and eighth. A full-size baking sheet typically measures 26 inches by 18 inches, with 1-inch-high sides.
Jelly Roll Pan vs Baking Sheet
A jelly roll pan is a specific type of baking sheet for baking jelly rolls.
Formed with a thin, light, and fluffy sheet of cake, this dessert is made by slathering fillings such as jelly, cream, fruit, nuts, chocolate, or cinnamon sugar across the cake's surface, then rolling it up from one end to the other. The result is a rounded, oblong dessert that sports a unique swirled appearance when sliced and served.
Due to this method of preparation, the cake base for a jelly roll needs to be a certain length, width, and thickness to support the weight of the fillings without cracking, crumbling, or tearing as it's rolled.
Enter the jelly roll pan. Usually smaller than a half-size sheet pan in both length and width, the half-size jelly roll pan has a narrow design that helps the delicate cake batter bake into a soft, flexible, fluffy sheet. Jelly roll pans are always rimmed, made with 1-inch-deep sides that contain the runny batter and give the cake a flat, rectangular shape as it cooks.
These pans are also available in quarter sizes for miniature jelly rolls.
Choosing a Jelly Roll Pan Substitute
Since jelly roll pans and half-size sheet pans are so similar, you might think swapping one for the other won't make a difference – but it might. That extra surface area provided by the slightly larger half-size pan can allow the jelly roll batter to spread more thinly as it cooks, resulting in a cake that might tear and crack when it's rolled.
To make a beautiful, unblemished jelly roll, precision and attention to detail is vital. Most recipes involve filling the pan almost to the brim, making it easy to accidently overflow hot batter into the oven if you miscalculate the amount needed. When baking jelly rolls professionally, buying jelly roll pans is the best choice to ensure high product quality as well as uniform size and texture.
But if you don't have a jelly roll pan lying around and would rather not spend extra money on buying additional pans, there are some alternatives you can consider.
Doing the Math on Jelly Rolls
If you want to give a half-size sheet pan a try, here's how to do it: Calculate the increased amount of batter needed to fill the larger pan and adjust your recipe to fit, making sure the finished cake will still come out at the correct thickness. Bear in mind, making a jelly roll even slightly larger than normal can make it more difficult to roll without tearing it.
This approach is also likely to require some trial and error to get the recipe just right, as small changes to the batter can have a significant effect on the finished cake's structural integrity.
Scaling Down the Dessert
Another option is to choose a quarter-size baking sheet, which is almost identical in size to the quarter-size jelly roll pan. Halve the amount of ingredients needed for a standard jelly roll, making just enough batter to fill the quarter jelly roll pan, and bake.
Baking Sheet vs Cookie Sheet
There are several styles of cookie sheets available, some of which crossover into baking sheet territory. Like jelly roll pans, cookie sheets can best be understood as a sub-category of baking sheets. In other words, all baking sheets can be used as cookie sheets, but not all cookie sheets can be used as baking sheets.
Recognizing Different Types of Cookie Sheets
Rim Styles: Designed specifically for solid baked goods that aren't runny, don't have sauce, and won't leak water or oil as they bake, many cookie sheets go one step further than low-sided baking sheets and are often totally rimless. This construction is intended to maximize air circulation and heat distribution among the cookies while they're in the oven, ensuring an even bake.
Some types of cookie sheets are rimmed on a single side to provide extra grip for bakers lifting pans in and out of ovens, while others may be rimmed on two sides so they can be gripped at either end.
Dimensions: Cookie sheets come in the same standard sizes as sheet pans, including full-, half-, and quarter-size options. Choosing a cookie sheet size depends heavily on the oven cavity's dimensions, as well as the volume of cookies that'll be baked each day.
For a more even bake, many bakers stagger the sheet pans in the oven, alternating a side-to-side and front-to-back pan placement to ensure optimal airflow. Since standard commercial ovens are usually wide enough to fit full-size pans from side to side but not front to back, you may need to choose three-quarter sized or smaller cookie sheets to be able to stagger their placement.
A bakery-depth oven, however, is specially designed to accommodate full-size baking sheets in both configurations, enabling maximum output and a uniform bake. If you're working with a bakery-depth oven, you can opt for full-size cookie sheets and still be able to stagger them as needed.
Perforations: Cookie sheets, like general purpose baking sheets, can be made with solid or perforated bottoms.
A cookie sheet with a perforated bottom enables more moisture to escape from baked goods than a solid pan, creating crispy, browned bottoms on cookies, scones, and flatbreads. A solid cookie sheet, on the other hand, will catch crumbs and grease, preventing small bits of debris from falling down into the oven's heating elements.
Using Jelly Roll Pans, Baking Sheets, & Cookie Sheets in a Commercial Kitchen
Each of these pan types has its own best uses and defining features, and the one you'll need for your business is influenced by the food you cook, the oven you use to cook it, and what volume of each kind of baked good you produce.
For a mobile food truck, catering operation, or business that includes baked goods as a small part of the menu, choosing a few general purpose baking sheets may be all you need to fulfill your kitchen's requirements. For other kitchens where baked goods make up the bulk of the menu – such as bakeries and coffee shops – it makes more sense to invest in a mix of pan types to produce a variety of cookies, scones, biscuits, jelly rolls, and more.
