List Price: $290.00
Sale Price: $289.95
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I have been making crepes for 30 years, using various frying pans. I fry my crepes in butter at high heat, getting a beautiful golden-brown finish. The thinner pans heat quickly for fast cycle-times, but also heat unevenly because of poor heat distribution. Most recently I have been using All-clad copper-core 12" frying pan which works pretty well, but I wanted the very low-profile edge, and the heavy copper for the ultimate even-heat distribution.
So I bought this Mauviel 12" crepe pan, which is 1.5mm copper with a stainless lined interior. Mauviel has 3 different handle options for most of the cookware stainless, cast-iron or bronze. For this pan, I could only find the bronze.
The handle has turned-out to be the biggest problem. First of all, this is a heavy pan, weighing nearly 4 pounds. The handle is just too thin it is barely an inch wide, and about 1/4" thick. It is just uncomfortable to work with lifting, rotating, flipping the crepes with this handle built like a butterknife. But, by FAR the biggest problem is that the bronze handle conducts a ton of heat from the pan up the handle. By the time I made maybe 4 or 5 crepes, the handle was so hot I couldn't touch it anymore. So I had to grab an oven mitt and use that for the remainder of the batch.
I don't understand how a company that has been making cookware since the Andrew Jackson administration hasn't yet figured-out how to make pan handles that are cool and comfortable to use?? I NEVER have this problem with my All-clad. Why doesn't Mauviel redesign the handle, or at least offer a silicone handle sleeve to fit their pan handles? Is this the best they can do for $250?
So now I am looking for a silicone handle sleeve that will fit which is a nightmare because no one publishes any dimension on these sleeves, except the length. So it will be trial and error until I find one that fits properly.
On the positive side, the pan worked as well as I could have hoped: it resulted in beautiful, uniform, even browning and absolutely nothing stuck to the nicely polished stainless. Of course, being raw copper, the exterior quickly oxidized with a pattern of bluish/purplish colors in the pattern of the gas burner. It is relatively easy to bring it back to new with copper cleaners, but I'm not sure if I will bother doing that every time. I bought this for its cooking performance, not as an art object.
Update Aug 2012: I did find a silicone handle that works really well a 'black silicone pan handle for 14" pans' (product #806849) from US Foods Culinary E&S Next Day Gourmet Black Silicone Pan Handle 6-1/4"L For 14" Fry Pans that was very inexpensive. This makes all the difference in the world. WITH the handle, I will upgrade the rating from 3* to 5* it makes that much difference. Never mind the 1* review on the handle it fits perfectly on this pan.
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Perfect crepes every time. Great addition to kitchen and mauviel collection.Easy to clean and use. We love love love it.
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