Mary Ann Pans

This post could alternately be called "Fun with baking and meat jelly".

Besides gardening, one of my interests is collecting vintage kitchen items.  I like old tins and boxes, various useful items, cookware etc.  I love lithographed, illustrated, advertising and recipe booklets.  I like things that modern trends have left behind.  I like tinware.  I like things from the 1920s.  Sometimes I run into an item that checks a lot of boxes.  And they're usually pretty cheap too.  A few years ago, while searching Etsy for tin pans I came across this little box of Mary Ann Shell Pans.  I loved it for the colorful box and for its completeness so I snapped it up for a few dollars.

Mary Ann Shells are any pans that create a cake with a sunken center for adding a topping.  They came in many shapes and sizes.  

This is the back page of the booklet that came with it.

I love this modern heart shaped pan. Who wouldn't want to create a dessert like this?

Creating it may even be more fun than eating it.

I bought this pan on Amazon.

These Mary Ann Shells with their colorful box were produced by Ekco starting in 1921

Below are the pans which came in my box.

Ekco, whom many of you will be familiar with since they made metal kitchenware well into the 1980s, was originally called the E Katzinger Company.

The E Katzinger Co became Ekco 

Here is an in depth and interesting History of the Ekco Company.  

Patent 1,388,364

They used this patent for the Mary Ann Shells.  

**Footnote:  I think I just realized where the name Mary Ann came from.  

The patent was held by Mary A. Miller.  

Eureka!

My vintage pans came with a little square booklet of recipes which was wonderfully illustrated.  The booklets aren't very common, no doubt due to the fact that they are perforated to let you put the recipes into your recipe box.  While I think of Mary Ann Pans as being cake pans, at least half of the recipes are for molding other foods.

Upper right: Spinach with creamed mushrooms and eggs

Upper left:  Rice ring with veggies

Recently, I scored another booklet on eBay which featured more recipes.  It was produced in 1929 and obviously done by the same artist.  So many options!

You could make a larger dish for your family, or break them into smaller portions to serve to the ladies when they came to play Bridge.

Some of the recipes are quite fancy like Salmon Mousse.

Other recipes feature foods we have left behind like Jellied Bullion (Aspic).

I wouldn't want to try a meat loaf in one of these pans either.  Its hard enough to get it out of a rectangular pan without making a mess.  That's the thing about using these old fashioned pans.  We've become accustomed to non-stick cookware or a shot of Pam Baking Spray.  These pans call for greasing them well in every nook and cranny.

Jellied Tuna Fish or Ginger Ale Salad

Gee, no one uses Aspic any more.  

In fact, America has lost a lot of imagination when it comes to gelatin molds.  They used to be a staple of all Holiday meals.  I sort of miss them.

So that is our little trip through late 1920s party preparation,

There is a winter storm building up.  The winds are blowing and the branches are falling.

Stay warm.