British vs US/Canadian pan sizes

[Anna N]

I have acquired a couple of British baking books. I would like to start baking from them but I noticed their pan sizes are different than those in North America. For instance they seem to have a 12 x 9 x 1 1/2" tray bake pan and a 2lb loaf pan which is 10x5x21/2". I don't fancy acquiring a whole new set of pans. Aside from perhaps a different baking time, will I likely run into any other problems if I use a 13 x 9 and a 9 x 5? (I was born and raised in Britain but came to Canada when I was 14 so I had not done a lot of baking!)

Edited to make some sense.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Anna N (log)

[Mjx]

I'm dealing with a similar situation in Denmark. After doing some math to figure out which pans had measurements that actually gave the same baked-good surface area (i.e. in this case, similar surface to volume ratios), and which gave significantly different surface areas, I found that often, simply following the recipe worked out fine, even for a slightly different pan; I check for doneness 10 minutes before the item is actually supposed to be done.

If the result was a bit underdone (sometimes happens when the surface area is smaller than you'd get when using the recommended pan), on subsequent occasions I've lowered the temperature 10C/50F, and extended the baking time by about ten minutes (my US cookbooks are now heavily annotated).

[Anna N]

I'm dealing with a similar situation in Denmark. After doing some math to figure out which pans had measurements that actually gave the same baked-good surface area (i.e. in this case, similar surface to volume ratios), and which gave significantly different surface areas, I found that often, simply following the recipe worked out fine, even for a slightly different pan; I check for doneness 10 minutes before the item is actually supposed to be done.

If the result was a bit underdone (sometimes happens when the surface area is smaller than you'd get when using the recommended pan), on subsequent occasions I've lowered the temperature 10C/50F, and extended the baking time by about ten minutes (my US cookbooks are now heavily annotated).

Thank you. I think I will just plow ahead and see what happens. I might keep my eyes open in the thrift stores but I certainly am not buying new ones.