My parents have an enormous group of close friends in their small Texas town.  They gather frequently and food is always involved.  You know about small town potlucks, right? Tons of food.  Every kind of delectable dish imaginable, most of it made with butter.

And jello with fruit for dessert.

I’ve never understood the jello with fruit.  So many questions come to mind, the first being: Who ever thought this was a good idea? Lime jello with canned pears does not a dessert make.

Not even close.

This adorable personalized cake pan would not work at all for lime jello with canned pears, because it’s far too cute and modern for a wanna-be dessert like that.  This pan would reject lime jello with pears.  This pan would violently buck and bend and hurl out the lime jello with pears, right onto the greasy linoleum floor.

Chocolate sheet cake, however, perhaps like this one, thick with butter cream icing, would make this pan proud.

What?  The pan?  You want to know about the pan?  Yes. OK.  On it.

I first saw this cake pan right over here at PW’s site, and since they’re so perfect for the holidays and other gatherings, I thought you’d need to know about them.  These personalized cake pans / lids are high-quality Nordic Ware, the kind you already know and love because they bake so perfectly, so evenly, that you cannot screw up what goes in.  Works fantastically for all sorts of dishes, from lasagna to apple cobbler.

But here’s the cool part:  Mary Alice, the awesome lady over at TheCakePanLady.com custom engraves these pans with your choice of 50+ really cute designs as well as your name.  Your NAME!  That means the next time you take a cake to the school for Teacher Appreciation, you get your pan back because no one, not even the PTA President, would dare hoist a pan with someone else’s name engraved on it.

I’m getting my Dad one of these for Christmas (Merry Christmas, Dad!), because although Mom & Dad’s gang looks to be mild-mannered and honest, you can never really trust someone with blue hair.  Plus, if my Dad, in his jello-induced haze, forgets to take home his cake pan, someone can always return it to him later… it’s got his name written all over it.

Check out the huge variety of designs right here.  Pans available in 5 colors and 2 sizes.  Order one for your mom and sister while you’re at it.  I’m partial to the dragonfly, but also pretty fond of the pineapple and the rooster.  In case you were wondering.

Custom-Engraved Cake Pan w/ Lid – starting at $31 from thecakepanlady.com