Bare, Nonstick or Stainless? The Best Jelly Roll Pan

A jelly roll pan is a small rimmed baking sheet, usually sold as 10 by 15 inches with a 1-inch rim. It was made for one job, a thin sponge that rolls up around jam or cream, like the niño envuelto in a Mexican panadería. It then turns out to be useful for bars, sheet cakes and small trays of roasted vegetables.

The catch is that the size on the label is not always the size inside the pan. This guide compares eight pans in anodized aluminum, aluminized steel, nonstick and tri-ply stainless, and tells you what each listing says about the inside, because that number decides how a jelly roll pan for baking behaves with your recipe.

Julia’s earns a commission on purchases made through links on this page, at no cost to you. Recommendations are based on what a working kitchen looks for in a sheet pan, the makers’ specifications and published reviews, which we name. We did not bake in these pans ourselves.

Quick verdict: which jelly roll pan to buy

All eight pans are reviewed below, each with one honest reason to skip it.

Five jelly roll pans at a glance

Our picks for the best jelly roll pan

These eight pans cover the common materials and sizes. Our broader best baking sheets guide covers half sheets and larger pans. If you are after something smaller still, see our quarter sheet pan guide.

How to choose a jelly roll pan

Measure the inside, not the label

This is the factor that catches people out. Taste of Home puts a 15-by-10-inch pan at 150 square inches. A pan sold as 10 by 15 with a smaller interior gives you less area, so the same batter bakes thicker and takes longer. Among our picks, the stated interiors run from a full 150 square inches down to about 113 on a pan still sold as 10 by 15. If a listing gives only one size, it may be the outside.

Know how it differs from a half sheet

A half sheet is larger, usually about 18 by 13 inches, so a recipe for a jelly roll pan spreads too thin on one. Taste of Home describes the 15-by-10-by-1 pan as a rimmed baking sheet, and says the rim is what separates these pans from cookie sheets. A cookie sheet with no rim will not hold a batter.

Pick a surface for your main bake

Bare aluminum, aluminized steel and stainless have no coating to wear, but they need parchment for sponges. Nonstick releases easily, but America’s Test Kitchen says it should stay at or under 450 degrees F and out of the broiler. A liner from our baking pan liners guide or a silicone baking mat makes an uncoated pan far easier to live with.

Check the floor of the pan

Corrugation, pebbling and other textures are there to help airflow and release. They can also print on the underside of a thin sponge. For rolled cakes, a plain floor gives the neatest result. For cookies and frosted sheet cakes, a pattern does little harm.

Think about acid and heat

America’s Test Kitchen warns that acidic ingredients, like tomatoes or vinegar, can leach metal from uncoated aluminum, while stainless surfaces do not react. If you plan to roast tomatillos as well as bake, reach for stainless or line the pan with parchment.

What to bake in one besides a jelly roll

A 10-by-15 pan sits neatly between a quarter sheet and a half sheet, which makes it good for a thin batch of bars, shortbread, a single-layer sheet cake or a smaller tray of roasted chiles and onions. Stand a rack inside it for bacon or breaded chiles, once you have checked that the rack fits. Keep one in the rotation and you may reach for the big half sheet less often.

For the roll itself, King Arthur Baking’s jelly roll recipe uses a 10-by-15 pan with parchment on the bottom, and rolls the warm cake in a sugared towel before it cools. An offset spatula spreads the filling once the cake has cooled and been unrolled.

How we picked these eight pans

We did not bake in these pans. We started with Amazon listings, keeping only pans the listing itself describes as a jelly roll pan, from a new offer, in stock when we wrote this. We left out baking sheets of a similar size that are not sold as jelly roll pans, and lesser-known brands with no independent review behind them, because this pan touches food.

We then read each listing for materials, stated size, heat limits and care, and we read America’s Test Kitchen’s rimmed baking sheet review and TechGearLab’s baking sheet review. Neither covers these exact pans, so when we quote them, we say which pan they were talking about. Our searches for independent reviews of these jelly roll pans turned up nothing dependable that we could read, so the picks rest mainly on the listings and the makers’ details.

Nordic Ware and Norpro make jelly roll pans that would have been candidates, but their listings were low in stock or unavailable. We checked the CPSC recall database for all six brands here and found no bakeware recall.

Jelly roll pan questions, answered

What size is a jelly roll pan?

The usual size is 10 by 15 inches with a 1-inch rim. Taste of Home calls it a 15-by-10-by-1-inch baking pan. Real pans vary, so check the inside measurement on the listing.

Can I use a half sheet pan instead?

Not directly. A half sheet has more area, so the batter spreads thinner and bakes faster, and a thin sponge can crack when rolled. Compare the two areas and scale the recipe up to match, as Taste of Home advises for any pan swap.

Is a jelly roll pan the same as a cookie sheet?

No. A jelly roll pan has a rim around the edge, and a cookie sheet does not, according to Taste of Home. The rim is what holds a liquid batter in place.

Do I need parchment in a nonstick jelly roll pan?

For a sponge, we would still use it, because it makes the cake easy to lift and turn out. For bars and cookies on a sound coating, you can usually skip it. Check your recipe and the maker’s care notes.

Which jelly roll pan for baking suits acidic food?

Stainless is the plain answer, since America’s Test Kitchen says those surfaces do not react with acids. Fat Daddio’s says its anodized pan is safe for citrus-based foods. On uncoated aluminum, use parchment.

Our final pick for rolled cakes

Buy the Fat Daddio’s pan if you bake from recipes and want the inside size they expect. Choose the Chicago Metallic Commercial II or the uncoated USA Pan for plain steel, and the OXO if easy release matters more than a full-size interior.

For larger pans, read our guide to the best baking sheets. And if you would rather someone else did the cooking tonight, see the menu or call to order.