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See why.The Best 9-Inch Round Cake Pans
For professional quality baked goods, you need a great cake pan. Find out which pan you should be using and why.
Last Updated Aug. 10, 2022. Appears in Cook's Illustrated March/April 2023, America's Test Kitchen TV Season 21: Elegant French Desserts
We recently learned that one of our previously recommended nine-inch cake pans has changed. After testing four new models, the Williams Sonoma Goldtouch Pro Nonstick Round Cake Pan is our new winner. It browned foods a touch more evenly than any other model we've tested. At half the price of our new winner, our previous winner from Nordic Ware is now our Best Buy.
We also tested and recommend the 8-inch versions of our favorite 9-inch cake pans.
Top Picks
What You Need To Know
Our favorite round cake pan, the light-colored Williams Sonoma Goldtouch Pro Nonstick Round Cake Pan, produced tall, evenly baked, golden-brown cake. It also turned out uniformly well-browned pizza. All food baked in it slid out easily, thanks to the pan’s nonstick coating. Our Best Buy, the Wilton Perfect Results Nonstick Round Cake Pan, baked beautiful cakes, too. Plus, it has wide handles that made it easy for us to securely grip when removing it from the oven. The food we baked in it released cleanly from the pan. We docked its rating slightly because the food we baked in it wasn't as evenly browned as food baked in our winner.
What You Need to Know
Whether you’re baking layer cakes, upside-down fruit cakes, pan pizza, or cinnamon buns, a good cake pan is a baker’s best friend. After all your hard work of measuring, mixing, and baking, it’s disappointing and frustrating to pull your cake out of the oven and realize it’s unevenly baked or that it’s stuck to the pan. To produce tall layers and to accommodate voluminous fruit upside-down cakes, we like 9-inch round cake pans that are at least 2 inches deep. We vetoed angled sides because straight sides make better layer cakes. To find out which cake pan is best, we purchased and tested a range of 9-inch cake pans. We baked Fluffy Yellow Layer Cake and Pepperoni Pan Pizza in each, comparing the results.
What to Look For
Light-Colored Pans: We slightly preferred light pans to dark ones. The two light-colored pans in our lineup produced golden brown and evenly baked cake. The cake was tall and airy with a flat, even top. Baking in a light colored pan reduces the chance that you will over-bake your cakes because the browning happens more slowly than in a dark pan. We’re happy to note the pan’s light color didn’t prevent it from developing deep browning when we made pizza in it.
Slick Nonstick Surface: Pans in our lineup with a good nonstick coating released all food with ease, leaving nothing behind. Delicate cake and sticky pizza slid out of these pans completely intact, looking beautiful. Nonstick coatings also make for a quick cleanup.
Nice to Have
Handles: Two of the pans in our lineup had distinct wide handles, which made it easier to rotate them in the oven as well as move them from the oven to the cooling rack. We loved how secure our grip felt, even with bulky oven mitts on.
What to Avoid
Uncoated Pans: Pans without nonstick coatings make it very challenging to remove food without damaging it. Despite thorough greasing, pizza fused to the pans without nonstick coating. They are also harder to clean than pans with nonstick coating.
Other Considerations
Dark Pa...
Everything We Tested
Highly Recommended
- Cake: 3 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 3 stars out of 3.
This nonstick-coated, light-colored pan produced tall, level, evenly baked golden-brown cakes. Pizza made in our winning pan also baked evenly and developed nice browning. Delicate and sticky food released easily, leaving nothing behind.
- Cake: 3 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 2.5 stars out of 3.
Solidly built, with light gold nonstick coating, this pan produced tall, fluffy, level cakes that were just a hair less evenly browned than our winner. Layers shaped up perfectly, no matter how the pan was greased. Upside-down cake and pizza released and browned well, but cinnamon buns were too pale. At half the price of our winner, this pan is a great option.
Recommended
- Cake: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 3 stars out of 3.
This pan’s wide handles made it easy to securely grip, even with oven mitts on. Its slick nonstick surface made cakes and pizza easy to remove. While the cake and pizza baked in this pan were evenly baked, we docked it slightly because cakes baked in it darkened a little more than we would have liked.
- Cake: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 2.5 stars out of 3.
We loved this pan’s nonstick coating, which easily released all food baked in it. Plus, its wide handles made moving the pan around and out of the oven easy. Cake in this pan was evenly baked, though it was a bit darker than cake baked in the lighter pans in our lineup and domed ever so slightly in the middle. Still, it's a fantastic, ultra-affordable option.
- Cake: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 2.5 stars out of 3.
This sturdy light-toned pan with a corrugated bottom browned consistently and produced level, tall cake layers, though they weren’t quite as tall as those baked in our winner (and were slightly less attractive when we used baking spray). Pan pizza browned well but not as deeply as it did in darker pans.
- Cake: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 3 stars out of 3.
This pan released perfectly but its dark finish radiated a lot of heat, setting the edges of the cake too quickly, which let the center rise to a dome. Layers were slightly less attractive when we used baking spray. But the dark finish browned pizza and cinnamon buns nicely.
Recommended with reservations
- Cake: 3 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 1 stars out of 3.
Early on we admired this uncoated shiny aluminum pan for its tall, level cake layers with straight sides, which emerged evenly light brown, not overly dark. Cake released well, but pizza stuck firmly despite greasing; we had to chisel it out.
- Cake: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 1 stars out of 3.
This thick, sturdy pan with a light, uncoated, matte finish produced mostly uniform cake layers with only slightly sloping edges. Cakes released fine, but with pizza, the lack of a nonstick coating was a big problem: Testers could hardly hack the pizza out of the pan.
Not Recommended
- Cake: 1 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 2 stars out of 3.
The dark finish on this sturdy, heavyweight pan overbrowned cake. Layers were sloped and visibly squat; one tester described the cake as “homely.” The bottom of the pizza was a nice golden brown; unfortunately, a few pieces stuck and burned on the sides.
- Cake: 1 stars out of 3.
- Pizza: 2 stars out of 3.
The cakes baked in this dark pan were some of the darkest and least risen among all the pans we tested, and their edges shrank from the sides, making them slope. The manufacturer does not recommend baking spray, so we used shortening, which overcrisped the edges. Grease and flour are imperatives.
Reviews you can trust
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
Carolyn Grillo
Carolyn is a senior editor for ATK Reviews. She's a French-trained professional baker.