Indian Idli or Cake Pan

Imagine a broad, low dish with scrolled handles and a surface gone green at the rim.

This brass idli or cake pan is from India, and dates to the early 20th century. Idli pans typically have several shallow round hollows in a rack, so that steam circulates around each cake and cooks the batter evenly. Simply, a wide, shallow vessel on a ringed foot with small curled handles at each side and several round dips inside. The brown surface has pale green deposits along the upper edge and a satiny sheen below. It is 3 inches high and 10.25 in diameter.

Weathered at the lip and thoroughly unbothered.