The Best Bundt Pan, Tested and Reviewed

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We then compared cake slices side by side to see if there were differences in crumb structure and general texture. After whittling down our list to our top four contenders, we then baked basic pound cakes to see how the best bundt pans stood up to heavier, butter-based batters.

When I’ve tested cake pans in the past, there have been glaring differences in the quality of the finished product that made finding the best cake pan relatively easy. However, in looking for the best bundt pan, every aluminum pan I tested performed quite well, producing cakes that anyone would be proud to serve. With the absence of any abnormalities or all-out disasters, I focused on ease of use, ease of cleaning, quality of construction and how well the pan will hold up over time.

Nordic Ware Platinum Collection Anniversary Bundt Pan

The better of the two Nordic Ware pans I tested, the Platinum Collection Anniversary Bundt pan had everything it took to be named best bundt pan champion… except for a nonstick surface. It’s a piece of cookware that’s tough as nails and bakes up batters beautifully. The finished cakes were undeniably gorgeous, with crisp, clear lines, grooves and angles — it would almost be a shame to cover them up with anything more than a light dusting of powdered sugar. However, this pan is decidedly not easy release. If it isn’t thoroughly greased with butter or cooking spray and coated with flour, cakes will stick so stubbornly that they leave their entire outer layer behind. While many bakers might not have a problem taking the extra step, it’s a step you don’t need to take with the USA Pan.

This is another stupendous pan, with a nonstick coating that hasn’t failed yet (this series from Williams Sonoma is generally a strong performer in other bakeware categories like loaf pans and pie pans). It’s also a beautifully crafted bundt, made of thick, highly-conductive cast aluminum that’s strong enough to last for ages. It’s also dishwasher safe, though cakes slid out of the Goldtouch so cleanly, there was seemingly nothing left behind to clean. The only downside to the Gold Touch is that it’s only a 10-cup bundt pan, so while it’s big enough to handle the majority of bundt pan recipes, it can’t handle all of them.

The flexible sides of silicone cake pans make unmolding unbelievably easy, but they make everything that comes before the baking unnecessarily difficult. While this pan isn’t so floppy that you’ll have to worry about your batter spilling out in the oven, you might need to worry about it sloshing about while you transfer it to the oven. Putting this pan on a sheet pan first eliminates a lot of the headache, but the extra heat it conducts in the oven will cause the top to brown a bit more than the rest of the cake. While there are better bundt pans for baking, the Aokinle is an excellent choice for making frozen bombes, gelatin molds, or other delicate ring-shaped recipes.

Nordic Ware’s ProForm is serviceable, but not stupendous. It’s made of a thin sheet of formed aluminum, and while it weighs and costs less than Nordic Ware’s other pans, it’s significantly less durable. It also advertises a nonstick finish, but the directions say it needs to be greased and floured in order to be nonstick. When we tried baking cakes without preparing the pan first, they stuck.

We’re home cooks just like you—and we bring a home cook’s perspective to all of our rigorous testing. But unlike you, we have an extra 10 hours a day to spend geeking out over kitchen tools because it is literally our job. We don’t only use our recommended products in controlled settings, we bring the best ones into our own kitchens to help us put dinner on the table on a Wednesday night for our families, or to throw a dinner party for 12. When we recommend a product, you should trust that we’ve used it—a lot—just like you will. Read more about our testing process and philosophy here.