I think it’s a safe bet that most people have at least one cake pan somewhere in their kitchen, but unless you’re serious about your baked goods, you probably don’t own a bundt pan. But you should consider changing that! With the best bundt pan, you can make a jaw-droppingly beautiful cake without the need for frosting, fondant or any cake decorating skills whatsoever. A classic vanilla bundt cake or pound cake needs nothing more than a light dusting of powdered sugar; a drizzle of easy-to-make glaze turns lemon bundts and cinnamon roll cakes into instant showstoppers.
The best bundt pans
What makes bundt pans a dream for lazy bakers is their shape. Their signature central tube is strictly utilitarian, allowing large quantities of cake batter to cook evenly throughout. But the sides of bundt pans are all about aesthetics; fluted, grooved, chiseled, wavy — a bundt pan bakes the element of design straight into the cake, so they look beautiful straight out of the pan.
A note on the name: though we commonly use it for all cakes with a hole in the middle, the term “bundt” is trademarked by Minnesota’s Nordic Ware, which was the first company to mass-manufacture this style of cake pan in America. Anything that isn’t a Nordic Ware bundt pan legally has to go by the name “tube pan,” even if colloquially we call them bundts.
The best bundt pan: USA Pan Fluted Tube Cake Pan
The USA Pan Fluted Tube Cake Pan has the largest capacity of every model we tested, and unless you’re planning on buying a bunch of bundt pans for every possible cake-related whim, you should go for a model that gives you as much versatility as possible.
While most cake recipes won’t make full use of this best bundt pan’s impressive 15-cup capacity, they’ll still come out of the oven exactly as promised. Meanwhile, the additional volume gives you the freedom to tackle recipes like this cardamom cake without the need for scaling down, or to go a little overboard with the biscuits when building a tower of monkey bread.
Made from commercial-gauge aluminized steel, the USA pan can conduct heat evenly and is strong enough to last for years, if not decades. The outside of our bundt cakes came out perfectly smooth and almost shiny, without cracks, tears or pockmarks. Cakes cooked at temperatures of 375℉ or more developed a slightly crunchy exterior, which contrasted beautifully with interiors that were light, fluffy and wonderfully tender. At 350℉ or lower, cakes were uniformly textured throughout, with uniform browning on the outside.
Both the inside and outside of our best bundt pan pick has a proprietary nonstick silicone coating that eliminates the need for greasing and flouring; cakes slipped right out by simply inverting the pan. By also using it to coat the exterior, USA Pan has made a baking pan that requires only a few seconds of sponging with soapy water to clean; if you’re someone who hates handwashing, it’s dishwasher safe, too.
What we didn’t like about the USA Pan Fluted Tube Cake Pan
Truthfully, there’s nothing we didn’t like about this pan. It’s versatile, well-crafted and does the job it’s made to do incredibly well.
The best budget bundt pan: Wilton Perfect Results Premium nonstick Tube Pan
This bundt pan from Wilton performed admirably in our tests, baking up cakes that were tender, uniform and tasty. It’s nonstick coating did a fine job, too, releasing cakes without a single crumb left behind in the nooks, crannies, crevices, so cleanup was a cinch. If you’re an infrequent baker that only pulls out the bundt pan once or twice a year, it’s a great buy.
What we didn’t like
As with most pans that are significantly cheaper than their competitors, the Wilton bundt pan is just not as high-quality as our top pick. It isn’t as well constructed and the metal is thinner and flimsier, so while it’s fine for occasional home bakers, it likely won’t hold up long use by professional pastry chefs use or anyone at-home cake fanatics. And unlike the USA pan’s ultra-durable proprietary silicone coating, the Wilton uses a silicone polyester nonstick coating that can be scratched by knives or metal utensils, which is always a concern with nonstick pans of any kind.
How I tested
Even though there is no shortage of exceptional bundt cake recipes out there, we understand that the majority of people baking cakes at home normally turn to boxed cake mix, which is why we used it for our first round of testing. Not only that, but by using factory-made mix, we could be certain that any variations in the final bake came from the pan itself, and not from any irregularities in ingredients or preparation. By using a basic boxed white cake mix, we were able to clearly notice any irregularities in color, which would tell us if the pans conducted heat unevenly.
