The Best Cake Pans of 2023

If you can’t decide between a round or a bundt pan, you may like the features that Ballarini has to offer. This two-in-one set up gives you a flat base for round cakes and a fluted base for bundt cakes. The springform not only lets you switch between the two bases easily, but also makes detaching the baked goods effortless. Our cakes turned out fine, with no noticeable unevenness or domed tops.

However, this nice setup isn’t without major flaws. First, it claims to have PFOA-free nonstick coating, but in testing, all three cakes (baked in each of the two bases) stuck when we tried to remove the cakes. Furthermore, the base had visible scratches though we refrained from using metal utensils in testing. Another major issue we ran into was leaking, which is a common problem that exists in springform pans across the board. In the yellow cake tests, the cake batter leaked from the bottom of the springform.

The Frieling springform model features elegantly designed handles, which are as functional as they are pleasant to look at. Choosing glass as the material for cake pans is a great style choice, but what you gain in fashion you may lose in function. In our testing, we found the glass bottom to be less practical than we had initially thought. Though it’s nice to visually check the doneness of the cake, the traditional method of poking a toothpick through the cake and checking for loose batter may provide a better analysis of the interior of the cake.

The dealbreaker was how difficult it was to remove the cake from the glass base—sure, you may want to serve it right off the base, but if you’re making a layered cake, that’s simply not an option. Put your money elsewhere if you’re serious about cakes. Another note is that the pan is heavier than the other cake pans we’ve tested in this roundup, partly because of the glass bottom.

As with other Great Jones cookware we’ve tested, the Patty Cake pans are gorgeous. This pan comes in a set of two, available in Broccoli (green) and Blueberry (blue). It has a corrugated bottom complete with the Great Jones logo, but don’t worry, the patterns didn’t leave too much of an imprint on the final cakes beyond some subtle lines here and there.

Construction-wise, it’s similar to our top pick by Chicago Metallic, which is made of aluminized steel with nonstick coating. This cake pan feels sturdy and durable, but not too heavy for lifting and transportation. During testing, our cakes baked two yellow cakes and a pound cake, which were relatively evenly baked with slight doming.

However, its major drawback is its fashionable bottom design, which made cleaning a bit more difficult than the other cake pans we’ve tested. Though it’s dishwasher-safe, we still recommend hand-washing to extend its lifespan because nonstick coating tends to deteriorate in heavy-duty washing cycles.

If you’re serious about making beautiful bundt cakes with clear definition, this cake pan from Cuisinart is a more affordable version of our best bundt cake pan. From the appearance, it may not be as stunning as the Nordic Ware pan, but its performance impressed us. In multiple cake tests, it baked the cakes evenly and the cakes were consistently easy to unmold. It’s a heavy-duty cake pan that baked many impressive cakes in our testing.

Be aware that the pan is coated with Xylan, a chemical coating that can be dangerous above 500°F so you should avoid heating the pan when it’s empty. Using any metal utensils is also a no-go, but otherwise, it’s not harmful with proper care.

This cake pan is durable and can sustain high temperatures in the oven without warping, thanks to its anodized aluminum construction.

However, baking perfect cakes in this pan may require more effort, as it isn’t nonstick even after greasing. In our testing, we noticed a few flaws: The white cakes were extremely hard to take out—I ended up breaking the cakes. The interior was runny and not fully baked at all, which defeats the purpose of using aluminum as the base material. As the cake kept getting stuck to the bottom, we deducted a few points for ease of cleaning.

Overall, it’s a bargain because this cake pan is sold in a set of two, but you may need to line them with parchment paper to make your life a little easier.

Similar to our Best Overall, this one uses aluminized steel as its base material, which makes it durable and distributes heat evenly across the pan. The nonstick coating is silicone, which is safer than other chemical coatings while also increasing the durability of the pan.

We didn’t like the dimpled bottom of this cake pan as we struggled to clean it after baking. It was also not as nonstick as the Chicago Metallic, as there were bits of residue stuck on the dimpled base. The USA Pan cakes also domed the most, making them a less attractive choice for bakers who want perfectly shaped cakes.

The Wilton Easy Layers is actually five 3/4-inch thick layer cake pans, designed for making perfect a multilayered cake using one batch of batter. This concept might sound appealing to people who are intimidated by cutting even layers from a single cake. However, baking four thin layers of cake means dividing cake batter into four equal parts and re-calculating the bake time. You may also end up worrying about the evenness of the cake, as the four cakes end up in four different parts of the oven, which likely has hot spots. So in the end, you may be spending much more time portioning and doing math, as opposed to slicing the cake using an inexpensive tool like a cake slicer. Unless you’re dedicated to making a Dobos Torte as seen on The Great British Bake Off, you may save yourself some time by using one of the other cake pans we tested.

These pans come in a set of two, so if you’re planning to make tiered cakes, this setup could reduce your workload significantly..

Each pan has handles on either side, which allowed us to transfer the baked cakes easily from the hot oven. Its carbon steel construction makes the bakeware relatively strong and heat-resistant, but the material isn’t as good at conducting heat as aluminum is, resulting in less satisfying results. The cakes are lopsided, potentially caused by the design of the tapered sides. You’ll need straight-sided models to effortlessly build stackable layers. Unfortunately, these cake pans also produced many domed cakes, which can be explained by their carbon steel construction.

The cakes baked in this pan came out consistently lopsided—this could’ve been an oven issue, but we didn’t notice such weird shapes in the cakes baked in other pans. In the yellow cake testing, we found the cakes continuously stuck to the bottom of the pan. In the pound cake testing where the exterior of the cake should be shiny and brown, the color of this pound cake was dull, not as pretty as the other cakes.

Another issue was with the description of the cake pan—it’s slightly smaller than 9 inches. If you’re looking to add a new 9-inch cake pan to your collection, you can skip this one.

Though this pan has received high marks from online reviews, we were disappointed by its performance after testing it. This anodized aluminum pan has some promising features: It’s durable and nonreactive, making it a safe baking vessel. What threw us off was how all the cakes got stuck to the bottom when we unmolded them. This straight-sided pan is 3 inches deep, much deeper than the other pans we’ve tested, resulting in a more difficult greasing experience.