Mauviel M'Heritage M150B 6535.30 12-Inch Crepe Frying Pan with Bronze Handle

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.

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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