Thrifty Acres: Vintage Tea Loaf Pan

Hello! My curiosity was piqued earlier this year at a thrift store when I spotted an old baking pan. It was clearly a loaf pan, but was longer and narrower than my 9x5 pan. It wasn't in the best of shapes, but was only 50c, so I bought it. 

While looking at the online version of the King Arthur Flour catalog recently, I saw this write-up of their tea loaf pan:

Shave about 25% off the time needed to bake a typical 1-hour quick bread with this longer, slimmer pan.

• Playing card-sized slices are much more diet-friendly than traditional full-sized, perfect for a teatime snack.
• 12" x 4" x 2½" tea loaf pan holds the equivalent of a 9" x 5" loaf pan.

Well, there you have it - my pan has identical dimensions, so it's meant for tea breads. Here's what mine looks like:

Notice the vertical "stripes". They are slightly ribbed, so they show up faintly on the baked loaf; built-in slicing lines, I assume. Thus, the lady of the house would be assured of having properly delicate slices of bread for her tea sandwiches. 

And of course, I know about the lines showing up on a baked loaf because I made the following in my pan:

Sour Cream Raisin Bread 

1 1/2 cups sour cream (reduced fat is okay)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup (one stick) butter, melted
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup raisins
1 1/2 cups flour (I used 1 cup white wheat and 1/2 cup white)
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 teaspoons cinnamon, divided
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

• Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x5 pan (or tea loaf pan). 
• In large bowl, stir together sour cream and baking soda. Set aside for five minutes. 
• To the sour cream mixture, whisk in the melted butter, sugar, eggs and raisins. Set aside. 
• In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, one teaspoon of the cinnamon and salt. Add to the sour cream mixture and stir just until blended. Spread half of the batter into pan.
• Stir together the remaining two teaspoons cinnamon, brown sugar, maple syrup and walnuts. Sprinkle this mixture over the batter in the pan. Cover with remaining batter.
• Bake for 65-75 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. My tea loaf-sized bread needed only 55 minutes.
• Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

(Recipe adapted from Innkeepers' Best Quick Breads, Laura Zahn, author.)

Ready for tea:

If you're thinking the recipe sounds rather rich, you're right. It's also quite sweet,even though I used a bit less sugar in the batter. Could also reduce sugar by omitting the filling.

The butter and sour cream made it quite moist as well. Consequently, it sunk a little upon cooling, as you can see above. Nevertheless, it's a nice snack to have with tea, which is what I did after taking the photo!