To Bundt or not to Bundt… Why should you use a Bunt pan?

 

When should you use a bundt pan pin

I have gotten a number of questions lately about fluted pans, so I wanted to talk a little about why this type of pan is so important to the type of cake that you are making.  Many people have been asking, “Can I bake a pound cake in a regular round cake pan?” The short answer is, yes you can… but it won’t turn out as well.  I am a “why” person… and I figure some of you might be as well, so lets go into a little more detail.

First of all, there are several types of fluted pans. For the sake of this discussion we will call them a “bundt pan” (the patented name by Nordic Ware) and an “angel food cake pan” (or tube pan). They each have different qualities and different situations that they should be used.

A bundt pan has decorative sides and tops that range from ridges to fruit, or other still life scenes. It is usually used for pound cake and other dense moist cakes such a coffee cakes. Pound cake batter has a lot more moisture than a standard cake batter due to all the butter, milk and eggs.  Because of the extra moisture, it takes longer to cook and usually uses a lower temperature.  The bundt pan allows more of the cake to be in contact with the edges of the pan, and therefore the heat is transferred more evenly.  If you put pound cake into a regular round cake pan,  it will not cook in the center or it will burn on the edges. The hole in the middle of a fluted pan allows air and heat to rise through the center of the cake, and to cook evenly. You can usually put pound cake into 2 medium loaf pans, and adjust the temperature down about 25 degrees, but it can be hit or miss to get the center cooked before the edges burn. Below is a picture of the bundt pan that I used when I made Easy Monkey Bread.

Easy Monkey Bread butter sugar dough

I usually bake my pound cake in an angel food cake pan because my angel food cake pan is much larger (10-12 cups) and my pound cake recipe needs a bigger pan. Check out my Great-Grandma’s hand me down recipe here

An Angel food cake, on the other hand, is a much more delicate light cake, and needs to be baked in a smooth sided angel food cake pan. Most angel food cake pans come in 2 pieces. The center tube and the bottom of the pan is one section, and the outside wall is the other section. This helps when you are removing the cake from the pan, to keep the delicate cake from pulling apart.  If you were to try to put angel food cake into a decorative bundt pan, it would likely leave parts of the cake in the decorative “nooks” of the pan when you removed it.

PoundCakeFlouredPan

TIP: When searching for an angel food cake pan, look for one that has 3 small “feet” on the top rim. The feet allow you to flip the cake upside down when you bring it out of the oven to cool. It keeps the cake from collapsing on itself. Another trick that my mom would use on pans that do not have feet, is to flip the pan upside down, and place the neck of a wine bottle in the center hole. This will keep it elevated off the counter and allow it to cool without collapsing.

Kitchen Encounters has a great article that goes into greater detail on fluted pans, plus some other great tips. Check out the article here!

Amazon tip: something I learned is that if you add an item into your cart on amazon (and not buy it now), they will notify you with an email when the price drops on that item. 

Note: This article contains some affiliate links. That means that if you choose to buy something through that link, I will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. You can view my disclosure policy here.

When should you use a bundt pan FB

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Comments

  1. Thanks for the tips! My mom and I were just talking about this earlier this week. You may want to correct the spelling of ANGLE to ANGEL however. :-)

    • Ashley says:

      Haha!! I can’t believe I did that!! That is when late night writing and using the wrong word (so spell check misses it) come taught in an epic fail moment… Thanks for letting me know!! 😉

  2. Penny Keim a.k.a. Grammy Sammy says:

    Your article outlines the whys to use which pan so well. I’d add another hint after 57 years of cooking: never use the angel food cake pan for any other purpose. Oil/grease can accumulate over time when used for regular cakes and grease is the absolute enemy of beaten egg whites so you will start with a fallen cake before those whites ever have a chance to climb the sides of the pan to make that wonderful angel food
    confection. If there is not a wine bottle handy for inverting the cake, a long neck pop (soda) bottle will work as well. Good luck finding those in our aluminum can world! Blessings…Grammy Sammy

  3. Joanna says:

    I actually just made a homemade angel food cake in my bundt pan last week. Turned out great! If i made them often, I’d invest in the correct pan. The key is to make sure it’s very clean and only use the cake for trifles or other desserts where you’ll be tearing the cake up. Don’t expect it to come out perfect and ready to slice with a bundt!

  4. Melanie Preschutti says:

    Ashley — you write a nice blog and I enjoyed reading this post! Thank-you for the link to my Kitchen Encounters blog — I love it when we bloggers do nice things for each other! ~ Melanie

  5. Another cake that should always be baked in a bundt pan is yeast-based cakes (like savarina). I’ve found that when you try and bake them in cupcake pans like some recipes suggest they turn out burned or undercooked. I have mini bundt pans for this very purpose.

  6. I just made a Cinnamon Swirl Quick bread and put into a bundt pan well that was a bad idea when I took it out I lost half of the top I should have read this article first. It tastes great but it wouldn’t win a cake contest! :)

  7. Myrtle says:

    Hello
    Can i bake chocolate moist cake in bundt pan? How long and how high should the temperature be?
    Thank you soo much

  8. Michelle says:

    It is also really useful to use bundt cake pans for gluten free cakes. Gluten free flour cakes tend to fall in the middle with regular cake pans, so having essentially an all-round narrower cake pan produces much more reliable cakes, that are cooked through and hold their shape.

Trackbacks

  1. […] kitchen tips are always good to have.  Leaving the Rut discusses Why Use a Bundt Pan.  Good info […]

  2. […] baking process, the bundt pan is better suited for pound cake and other dense cakes.  According to Leaving The Rut, this style of pan allows the cake to come into contact with the edges of the pan and therefore, […]

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