Types of Baking Pans

Selecting the correct type of baking pan is as essential as choosing the right kind of flour for creating beautifully baked goods, and there’s a wide variety of pan materials and styles to choose from. Baking times are also highly dependent on the pan material, but once you know how each material reacts, you can adjust your baking temperatures and times like a pro! To help you make your selection, here is a guide on the most common types of cake pans and their uses.

For cakes – invest in aluminum cake pans with a light finish, like Fat Daddio or PME.

Cookies – buy at least 2 sheet pans and preferably heavy duty with a light finish.

Pies – purchase a metal pie plate with a darker finish, which will combine extra heat absorption with being a good heat conductor! It’s the perfect combination for getting the pie crusts baked on the bottom so that you can avoid soggy pie bottoms.

Cheesecakes – a light springform that has a good seal is essential. This will allow you to bake cheesecakes in a water bath, gently, thereby avoiding any cracks, but also this will reduce browning on the edges so that the cheesecake bakes more evenly.

Bundt cakes – the best in the industry is Nordic Ware bundt pans. They have a special non-stick coating that prevents baked goods from getting stuck in the intricate patterns and grooves. Nordic Ware pans are heavy-duty, and the company has a great reputation with good reason

Extra tips:

Darker materials radiate more heat than lighter materials. So, a pan with a dark, dull (matte) finish will release the most heat, while a pan with a shiny aluminum finish will radiate the least.
Pans that radiate the most heat are the best at transferring heat to baked goods. With darker pans, I recommend dropping the oven temperature by 10 ºC.
Soaking the pan in hot soapy water for 5 minutes usually lifts any stuck-on food. Avoid using any scrubbing brushes that are too rough on baking pans, especially if they have a coating on them, which you could damage with excessive scrubbing.