Hello CC Members:

My name is Greg Skipper and I am one of the owners of Fat Daddios. I wanted to give you a bit of my background and history with cake pans and baking supplies. I apologize in advance for the length of this email but I feel it is important I respond. In addition, there is a special reward for those of you that perservere through my message.

To begin, I appreciate the experiment Petit-Four conducted. It is a testament to the quality of the members on this board always "looking out" for their fellow member. I have listed some reasons below why our pans performed differently in this test and hope that through a change in handling will result in better results for each of you.

My family has manufactured bakeware since the 1960's. In fact, we started in business to private label manufacture the Magic Line pans. Over the next 30+ years we manufactured many other companies pans as well. During that time we heard many of the things people loved about our pans and things people would like changed. I took many of the thousands of suggestions we received over 30 years of manufacturing and developed the Fat Daddios brand of bakeware.

Yes, the pans are very different from what we made for Magic Line. EVERYTHING we did was intentional and for a very specific purpose. All of our pans are anodized to provide a clean and safer surface to bake on. This process seals the natural aluminum and prevents any leaching of contaminants or aluminum into your food and provides for an easier clean-up. Further, anodizing hardens the metal causing our pans to be nearly as hard as stainless steel, ensuring a longer life. Natural aluminum bakeware has been reported by the FDA to leach aluminum into your food especially so with acidic foods. The same report by the FDA explains how anodized aluminum seals the metal and prevents that contamination and leaching.

Our pans bake differently than ML pans. Our pans conduct heat differently and more efficiently. That being said our pans should be baked at 325 degrees for standard ovens and as low as 300 degrees for convection ovens. In addition, our pans should be baked for a shorter period of time than ML pans. This efficiency has been proven by numerous large commercial bakeries around the world, all of whom have switched their production lines to our pans. If you bake at 340 or higher in our pans crowning will occur. That is also the reason there were issues with crumbs. Too much heat resulted in crowning, overbaking, and drying out. This will always create crumb issues. If you make these adjustments you will find a substantially better baking experience.

Please don't get me wrong, I think ML is a great pan, my family made it for decades. I just believe we have created something truly different, safer, and better. Ironically, our process actually costs us more money to manufacture than if I chose to make the pans the same as we did for ML. There is no reason why I would have chose to make the pans the way we now do and incur higher costs if I did not feel would provide a benefit to YOU our customers.

For that reason, I have spoke with Alan at Global Sugar Art about a special promotion. I am sending him just over 50 of our pans at no charge. He is going to create a special product page on his website that you can go on and order one of these pans at absolutely NO CHARGE. Fat Daddios is going to cover all costs for the product and shipping. We want you to try for yourself and let us know your thoughts. Alan said he would have the page set up next Tuesday for those of you who would like to take advantage of this offer. I welcome ANY questions you may have. I can be emailed at gskipper @ fatdaddios.com . For those of you going to ICES, please stop by and chat with me as I would love to talk more about our products and new items being developed. In addition, there will be some great freebies for those of you that come by!

Again thanks for bearing with this long post and please contact me with any questions. I appreciate your time and support!

Warm Regards,

Greg

The free pans should arrive in stock on Tuesday, June 3rd and will be posted here and on my website. Please do not call our store and request that we hold a pan for you. Happy Baking! Alan

Oh Alan can you hold a pan for me???

LOL J/k

One of our members pointed out to me Greg has posted his message about me in 3 different forums.

I would like to just note that I am not affiliated with any cake, pan, or baking manufacturer or shop in any manner. I was surprised at CC members' response to my "test." I just would invite CC members to read the original, complete post (which I know is long), so that they may see what I believe was a fair test. I have made a point of checking the post frequently, specifically to note and accomodate the many helpful suggestions of CC members, both ML and FD fans.

I see now my original post has been deleted.

Sorry. I did not realize CC monitored the boards for comparative studies.

Thanks.

I'm updating CC members -- sorry for the duplicate posts, but I am trying to clear my name. My original post was deleted.

I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with Greg Skipper. I have his permission to share our email exchange with you all.

I'd like leave the decision about buying up to all CC members. This was, and always was, my intent.

I am now working to clarify why my post was censored.

Thanks to all who PM'd and emailed support!

Petit-four



Dear Greg:

Thanks for your recent post on Cake Central.

My evaluation of the pan was simply a reflection of what a local cake shop sold. Just as a food critic visits a restaurant and does not ask for "special" service, my purchases (the Magic Line was from an on-line store) reflected what an average customer would receive. If you read my post carefully, you will see I also noted some problems with the Magic Line pans (such as difficulty in cleaning them by hand). In many areas your pans were rated as superior to Magic Line. The experiment I conducted was fair, given that no accompanying information regarding baking temperature was given to me when I bought the pan from a local cake shop.

Most importantly, as I am sure you know, bakers, whether in production bakeries, small custom shops, or at home, value fewer crumbs. I baked another set of cakes (cinnamon, scratch recipe) at 320. I had similar results: more crumbs, and a longer baking time.

As I mentioned in one of my posts, I suspected the crowning was due to the temperature being rather too high. However, if FD pans do require temperatures as low as 300 degrees, I would strongly encourage the company to provide some accompanying literature about the requirements. As you can see, none of the 1600+ readers (myself included) ever mentioned receiving any information about this. Only one post mentioned using a lower temperature, and she had to find the information herself. And, as you know, convection ovens have become much more common in home and small shop kitchens.

Regarding the information about aluminum transfer, you may wish to review the Alzheimer's Society's public health article, which concludes, "The overwhelming medical and scientific opinion is that the findings outlined above do not convincingly demonstrate a causal relationship between aluminium and Alzheimer's disease, and that no useful medical or public health recommendations can be made, at least at present." http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/s.....umentID=99 However, I do applaud you for bringing up this health issue.

Another point of concern to me is that Magic Line pans clearly state where they are manufactured; indeed, it is indelibly etched on the pan: "Made in USA." The Fad Daddios pan I purchased had only a sticker on it "Made in China." I would strongly suggest, since you note that "our process actually costs us more money to manufacture" that you provide evidence to the decorating community that your factories are staffed with individuals compliant with FDA health codes, and workers are paid appropriately.

I'd also like to add I am in no way affiliated with Magic Line, nor any other brand of cake product manufacturer. I would like to share my concerns with the CC community, as well.

Sincerely,
Kathy (Petit-four)

Here's his reply:

Kathy,

I appreciate your email and how well thought out and executed your experiment was. Please understand I am not bashing you at all and I apologize to you if that is how it came across. On the contrary I am quite respectful of your experiment and your time in conducting it. I just wanted to reply accordingly as I need to be fair to my company and brand and make sure our customers are aware of differences. I did note where we rated well in some areas. I was just trying to do my part to explain possible reasons for areas where we clearly lacked a âgood gradeâ.

You couldnât be more correct in informing our customers of baking temperature differences. In fact, we just started labeling our pans and this information will be appearing on those labels. I should have known better by not doing that before. I likely could have eliminated many of these issues. I have received a huge influx of emails since this morning and have heard from several people who like the pans and have stated they even bake with our pans at 275 in convection with excellent color, consistency, and release. I am not endorsing 275 but it goes to show variances that occur from oven to oven.

I noted your web link with the correlation between Alzheimerâs and aluminum and quite frankly, I agree. I did not state that there was a correlation between Alzheimerâs and aluminum, nor do I honestly believe that there is. Aluminum is prevalent in so many areas of our lives and is the most abundant material. It is agreed that there is an elevated amount of aluminum found in autopsy reports of individuals with Alzheimers and this has lead to a very large group of consumers who are genuinely concerned with the use of this metal. For the past 40 years we have had tremendous trouble selling our previous style of natural aluminum pans in many markets (especially France and Italy) and to many commercial bakers because of the leaching and contamination issue. Natural aluminum is unquestionably highly reactive with acidic foods and changes the flavor of many foods as well. Cream that comes in contact with aluminum distorts the taste of it. Acidic foods will literally âeatâ the aluminum. We sent several thousands of natural aluminum 9x13 pans to Knottâs Berry Farm in Southern California many years ago that were used for their boysenberry cakes. After a couple months we were notified that holes were appearing in the pans and large cavities were covering the pan. After sending the pans to a metallurgist we discovered the fruit was literally eating the pans. This same customer has been using our anodized aluminum pans with absolutely no pitting or contamination. The problems with natural aluminum are very real and that is why we elected to anodize our products.

As for the China issue, we are very proud of the quality and manufacturing process of our bakeware. We have very strict controls on our factory, employ our own QC staff, and have on-site our own management team. Our factory is greatly capitalized by our company. Our factory is state of the art in technology and is perhaps the cleanest facility I have ever stepped foot in. Our pans do cost us more as they are made form 100% the same materials we used for Magic Line and then anodized after the fact. If I went to market with a natural aluminum pan I would save the cost of anodizing which adds that additional cost to my product (up to 13% over natural aluminum).

I would like for you to call me to talk some more. I noticed that CC has modified your original post and I have had absolutely nothing to do with that. I posted my response on 3 different boards there only for the reasons to get the free pan offer out to as many people as possible.

Thank you,

Greg
Greg Skipper
Fat Daddios
Toll Free 866.418.9001







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Oh, and I want to add: I did not, have not, nor ever will receive any free, discounted, or otherwise marked-down products or merchandise from FD or ML (nor Wilton for that matter). No free pans for me, thank you.

I'm happy to clarify any questions about this thread, and appreciate all the honest and freely-given information posted. I'm very sorry the original post was taken down, and am in the process of clarifying with CC why the post was removed.

Thank you to all for your support -- I've have quite a day!

Petit-four and I have exchanged some PMs regarding this situation.

I believe it has been worked out, and I wanted to make a statement that will hopefully bring an end to the confusion of the day.

1. In hindsight I feel that a mistake was made in removing the post. This was a failure on the part of Jackie and I.

2. The removal of the post was not due to the "influence" of a vendor. Our understanding of the situation was flawed. We understood the situation to be that the comparison test was invalid due to the issue with the cook times.

In discussing this further with both Petit-four and with Greg, it is now clear to me that the test should have been allowed to stand as it was. Our failure to fully understand the issue led to the drama surrounding this issue.

No one should be to blame here other than myself and Jackie. Petit-four did nothing wrong, Fat Daddio did nothing wrong.

As I state earlier, we are in the position of trying to review lots of posts each day, and sometimes we make mistakes, this is one of those times.

I apologize for the confusion and drama this failure has caused.