When Kevin and I started the Montclair Bread Company, the previous owners left stacks and stacks of strap pans for us to use. A strap pan is a set of four, or more, loaf pans, strapped together and used for baking rectangular loaves of sandwich breads. My baking style is European free form and I don't have much need for strap pans. Sure, there's an occasional brioche loaf but not 182 brioche loaves. My staff was getting really annoyed because they had to step over (trip over) these pans daily. They wanted me to get rid of them. After all these years in the baking business, I knew the value of the pans and I was determined to find a good use for them.
At the same time, I was urging Kevin to build retail shelving so I could better display our wares. I asked him if it was possible to hang the old strap pans and create a shadow box effect. He got to work. The pans had 20 years of carbon built up on them. Kevin scrubbed them down to their original splendor before he screwed them to the walls.
