Convert Bundt Pan to Regular Cake Pan

[Shel_B]

There's a recipe for an orange cake that I'd like to try. It calls for using a 10-cup Bundt pan which I don't have. Can I use a regular cake pan, or even a bread pan, or something else ... ? I don't want to buy a Bundt pan until I see if I like this recipe and am capable of making it. Thanks!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I've used an angel food cake pan in a pinch. However I bought a bundt pan last year and I use the bundt pan more than I thought I would.

[Shel_B]

I've used an angel food cake pan in a pinch.

I don't have an angel food cake pan ... never heard of such a thing. I have a loaf pan, an 8x8x2 Corningware pan, and can borrow a regular round cake pan (in various sizes) from my GF Oh, Toots has a circular pan that she uses for her flan. Don't know what size it is ...

[MelissaH]

I'd sooner say that two loaf pans would hold the batter from one bundt pan. If a recipe is specifying a bundt pan, it's often because it needs the air circulation you get from the hole in the middle to bake properly, if you do the whole thing in one pan.

[Lisa Shock]

You could substitute 3 eight inch round pans. You need to think about distributing the 10 cup capacity, one cake round will be woefully inadequate.

[merstar]

Pan Size Conversions:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/PanSizes.html

[judiu]

Shel, check your favorite (large) grocery store; down here in FL they sell heavy foil bundt pans, just need a baking sheet underneath to stabilize. HTH!

[dans]

Here's a question I've been wondering about for a while. Is there something special about cake recipes for a bundt pan? I have a couple but have never used them. Every time I have made a cake, i've used regular cake pans. I think I would like to try the bundt pan, but wonder if I have to change the recipe or baking process to accomodate the new pan.

[Lisa Shock]

Not really, unless it's a 'tunnel of fudge' cake. I think that some cakes we are just more used to seeing in a bundt pan or loaf pan. There's also less icing expected.

[andiesenji]

Here's a question I've been wondering about for a while. Is there something special about cake recipes for a bundt pan? I have a couple but have never used them. Every time I have made a cake, i've used regular cake pans. I think I would like to try the bundt pan, but wonder if I have to change the recipe or baking process to accomodate the new pan.

Heavier cakes, with a high moisture content bake better in a Bundt pat because in regular pans the outside edges will cook much faster and the center will remain soggy. Ditto for sponge cakes, which is why they and angel food cakes are baked in tube pans.

Flat sponge cakes are best when baked in shallow pans or sheet pans. In my mom's bakery, back in the 50s, we had weighted "cans" to put in the center of large round pans if we were baking the "traditional" fruited cakes because otherwise the center would never get fully cooked. As these were often tiered, it worked out fine because the center column for the upper tiers would go into the resulting hole. These were very heavy cakes, so needed the support.

Here is an excellent explanation and history of the Bundt pan.

I own several - including an original one I bought in 1960. I have one very large one (15 cups) and several smaller ones, various shapes and designs, all Nordic Ware.

If you go to Amazon and put one in your shopping cart and leave it there, occasionally there are really good temporary price drops and you will get a notice that the item price has changed. A few months ago I got this one for $14.99, less than half the regular cost.

[Syzygies]

I don't have an angel food cake pan ... never heard of such a thing.

If you search for one on Amazon, you can see what they look like. Hole in the middle, pretty much what you'd expect if you've seen angel food cake.

[andiesenji]

The BEST Angel food tube pans have "feet" at the top edges of the pan because these cakes will collapse on themselves while cooling in the pan so they are cooled upside down. As are sponge cakes - such as orange chiffon, etc. Any cake leavened with beaten egg whites.

Before a clever inventor add the feet, angel food pans were inverted over a bottle with the neck in the tube at the center (the way my grandmother's cook did it - using an old-fashioned quart beer bottle full of sand to resist tipping.)

In my mom's bakery, we had a rack with several posts that had collars to support the tube pans - I don't remember when I first saw one with the feet but they were not easily found until the '70s.

[MelissaH]

Shel, check your favorite (large) grocery store; down here in FL they sell heavy foil bundt pans, just need a baking sheet underneath to stabilize. HTH!

I'd be concerned about putting a baking sheet under a bundt pan. Some recipes need to be baked in a pan with a hole so that warm air flows through the hole, thus helping to cook the cake both from the outside of the pan AND from the hole. If you put a baking sheet under the bundt, you destroy that airflow and it adversely affects the baking of the cake.

[Lisa Shock]

Shel, check your favorite (large) grocery store; down here in FL they sell heavy foil bundt pans, just need a baking sheet underneath to stabilize. HTH!

I'd be concerned about putting a baking sheet under a bundt pan. Some recipes need to be baked in a pan with a hole so that warm air flows through the hole, thus helping to cook the cake both from the outside of the pan AND from the hole. If you put a baking sheet under the bundt, you destroy that airflow and it adversely affects the baking of the cake.

Professional bakeries put the pans on sheet pans all the time. In a lot of commercial bakery type ovens, there are no shelves at all, just slots for sheet pans to become the shelves. In larger ones, you can just roll a speed rack, or four, or more, into the oven, hook it up and leave it to bake -once again everything is on a sheet pan.

[andiesenji]

Shel, check your favorite (large) grocery store; down here in FL they sell heavy foil bundt pans, just need a baking sheet underneath to stabilize. HTH!

I'd be concerned about putting a baking sheet under a bundt pan. Some recipes need to be baked in a pan with a hole so that warm air flows through the hole, thus helping to cook the cake both from the outside of the pan AND from the hole. If you put a baking sheet under the bundt, you destroy that airflow and it adversely affects the baking of the cake.

Professional bakeries put the pans on sheet pans all the time. In a lot of commercial bakery type ovens, there are no shelves at all, just slots for sheet pans to become the shelves. In larger ones, you can just roll a speed rack, or four, or more, into the oven, hook it up and leave it to bake -once again everything is on a sheet pan.

Correct. The metal sheet pans heat up and the "convection" of heat radiates upward, including through the hole in the center of the pans.

In my mom's bakery we had a big "revolving tray" oven in which the "trays" were as thick as boiler plate and transferred a lot of heat. We baked directly on them, slid sheet pans loaded with product, with pans, sometimes with water bath pans (for cheesecakes) and etc.

I've seen (and used) plenty of foil ANGEL FOOD pans but have never seen a "Bundt" pan (the name is copyrighted and licensed) and they work just fine with sponge type cakes but they will deform with very heavy, moist cake batters that expand and push outward as they bake. When I use them for fruit cakes that are going to be gifted in the pans, I double them, one inside the other for more resistance. Using just one, I have had some odd shapes emerge from the oven.

Edited May 18, 2013 by andiesenji (log)

[annabelle]

Shel_B, try your local Goodwill or other thrift store. They often have loads of cooking and bakeware for next to nothing compared to new. Don't worry if they don't look shiny. An angel cake pan will have three little "ears" on it that are actually feet. Angel cakes must be inverted after they bake to keep them from falling. My mother always turned hers over on a glass soda pop bottle. For some reason, Bundt pans go in and out of fashion and they are often easy to find at thrifts.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Some libraries lend bundt pans. I bake with mine on the oven rack directly, I do not use a sheet pan under it.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

With all the talk of bundt pans, I'm putting mine to use: I've a munavalgekook in the oven as we speak.

http://nami-nami.blogspot.com/2009/01/egg-white-cake-recipe-angel-cake-recipe.html

My angel food pan is not one of the ones with little feet, but then I despise angel food cake anyhow.

[annabelle]

I'm not wild about Angel Cake, either. I use my angel food cake pan for other cakes that are dense and need air circulation: Dutch apple cake, applesauce and raisin cake and the like. I have a new and larger 10-cup Bundt pan, so my angel cake pan now gets little use.

[HungryC]

Some libraries lend bundt pans. I bake with mine on the oven rack directly, I do not use a sheet pan under it.

Seriously? Where? I've never heard of a library lending out cooking equipment. A/V equipment, computers, but not Bundt pans.

[Shel_B]

Shel, check your favorite (large) grocery store; down here in FL they sell heavy foil bundt pans, just need a baking sheet underneath to stabilize. HTH!

Thanks! That does help ... it's certainly worth a look or two. Meanwhile, I continue to check garage sales ... Toots and I have found a lot of neat stuff at garage/yard sales.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Some libraries lend bundt pans. I bake with mine on the oven rack directly, I do not use a sheet pan under it.

Seriously? Where? I've never heard of a library lending out cooking equipment. A/V equipment, computers, but not Bundt pans.

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/06/library-services/let-them-lend-cake-pans/

...for example.