The 6 Best Cake Pans for 2025
We looked for cake pans that are:
Sturdy: A good cake pan should be sturdy and resistant to denting or warping. Otherwise you risk ending up with a misshapen brownie or a leaning layer cake.
Light-colored: Cake pans with lighter finishes bake more slowly and evenly. Darker pans can cause the edges of cake layers to brown too quickly, leading to cakes with overdone edges and uncooked centers.
Metal: Metal is more durable than ceramic or glass, and it’s what most recipes are designed for. Ceramic and glass conduct heat less efficiently, baking your cake more slowly and potentially throwing off baking times. Silicone cake pans are prohibitively floppy and often fail to brown at all.
Sharp or rounded: The shape of the corners on non-round pans can vary—some are rounded, some are sharp—but we didn’t rule out either. Sharp corners look more professional, but it can be hard to clean crumbs from their crevices. Round corners are easier to clean and to butter, but they can be shallower than the rest of the pan, potentially leading to dry or burnt corners.
Easy to release: A good pan should release a cake effortlessly and clean up easily. Many cake pans these days come with a nonstick coating, though a few widely used varieties don’t. We chose to test both, because each has its pros and cons.
Nonstick pans release cakes more effortlessly and are simpler to clean. But they can be easy to scratch and are not dishwasher-safe.
Uncoated pans have more longevity, but you may need to line them with parchment to fully prevent sticking.
Standard-sized for recipes: For round pans, we limited our testing to pans 9 inches in diameter and 2 inches tall. All of the experts we spoke to agreed that this is the most common size a recipe will call for, and the best choice if you’re going to buy only one size.
We tested the most common square and rectangular cake pan sizes: 8 by 8 inches and 13 by 9 inches.
For loaf pans, we chose to test 9-by-5-inch pans, because they’re better for handling voluminous yeast breads as well as quick breads. (We tested a seamless 8-by-4.5-inch pan for ease of cleaning, which also worked with standard recipes.)
To test the round pans and square pans, we first baked a simple yellow cake in a greased pan. We baked cakes one at a time in the center of the oven to ensure even baking, and we baked each for the same amount of time.
We then baked a batch of canned cinnamon rolls in each buttered pan to see how much sugar stuck to the bottom and how difficult it was to clean.
To test cupcake pans, we made blueberry muffins and yellow cupcakes. We took note of how evenly browned each muffin and cupcake was and how consistently each pan baked, cupcake by cupcake.
To test loaf pans, we baked banana bread and white sandwich bread. In each test, we looked for adequate rise, even golden browning, and fully cooked interiors. We noted how well the cakes or breads released from the pan.
For all pans, we ran both a butter knife and a paring knife over the surfaces to see how easily they would scratch. Manufacturers of nonstick pans warn against using metal utensils, but we know it can be hard to avoid, so we tested how durable each pan was.
The pans we picked had the most successful bakes in our tests—baked goods that came out cooked all the way through and lightly browned around the edges, with an ample rise and even complexion.
