Cake Tins

Baking can definitely be a fun activity in which to get involved as it not only allows you to explore and express your culinary creativity but you also have the opportunity to create tasty treats for people close to you to enjoy. As with any other forms of cooking, your choice of utensils can have a significant impact of your cooking experience – they would either make your efforts easier immensely or hinder you at every turn.

As a beginner, when you enter the world of baking, one of the most essential bakeware you should have in your arsenal of cooking utensils is a cake tin. I have also noticed that some people refer to them as cake pans. If you are not familiar with this term, cake tins are basically the moulds in which you pour your cake ingredients and place into the oven to cook. In this article, I’ll discuss the different kinds of cake tins you may encounter during your search.

As you probably can guess, there are many different kinds of cakes you can make. You only need to enter “cake recipes” in Google and you’ll see what I mean. There is indeed no shortage of ideas. On top of this, when you reach a certain level of experience and become comfortable with the baking process, you can start coming up with your own inventions, so by this point, you’re only limited by your imagination. Given that there are different kinds of cakes to make, you would then need a cake tin suited for the task. I’ll introduce the main types of cake baking tin you can get.

If you decide you want to bake relatively thick and tall cakes such as fruit cakes and wedding cakes, then this particular type of cake tin is appropriate. Sometimes with the deep height, it can be tricky to remove the cake once it is cooked. This is even more of a problem if the cake sticks to the tin itself. That is why there are variations which feature loose bottoms. This means that after your cake is cooked, rather than wasting time fiddling from the top end of the tin, you can remove the cake from the bottom end.

Unlike deep cake tins, this range of cake tins is much shallower. Another name for these is layer pans and as that name suggests, they are designed for baking layered cakes such as the Victoria sandwich cake. This cake has two separate layers and as such, you generally need to two of these cake tins in order to cook them simultaneously in the oven.

It is no secret that when it comes designing a cake tin, manufacturers understand that practicality is a high priority for the end users. If it makes the job easier, the idea will stick (please excuse the pun).  I spoke earlier about cake tins with removable bottoms. As well as having this feature, Springform cake tins also have walls that can expand and contract. Prior to cooking, you engage the spring clip on the side to contract the walls. Once the cake is cooked, you simply disengage the clip, which allows the cake to be removed with greater ease.

As the title suggests, this type of cake tin is designed for cooking cakes with a loaf shape such as banana cakes, chocolate cakes and fruit cakes. A big plus here is that it makes portioning the cake easier as you can slice each portion with one cut.

Cake tins are not just reserved for single large sized cakes. You can get cake tins that can be used for cupcakes and muffins each of which can hold from 6 cupcakes up to 24 cupcakes. If you need to make snacks for an afternoon tea party, birthdays or show off your baking skills at your office, using cupcake tins would be perfect.

These particular cake tins are not specifically for the purposes of baking, but I thought I mention them as they are useful. There may be occasions when you and your family or friends are unable to finish eating the cake. In this instance, cake storage tins can come in handy. Nowadays you can find such storage units that feature air tight rubber seals on the edge of the container and lid, allowing you to prolong the freshness of the cake.

Aside from the different types of cake tins you can get depending on the cake you’re making, they can also be made from different materials. On the basic end of the scale, there is the stainless steel cake tin. It is low cost and durable. However, the downside is the lack of non-stick surface, which can make cleaning up an arduous task. To counter this problem, you might want to consider non-stick or anodized cake tins. These are easier to clean but you should take care to minimize (or even avoid altogether) usage of metallic tools on the surface. Extensive scratching can leave marks or possibly even remove parts of the surface. The latest craze to hit the market is the silicon based cake tin. This material allows you bend and stretch the cake tin and it is designed to be still safe to use in the oven and dishwasher.

The wide range of shapes and sizes of cake tins you can find in the market these days is simply incredible. No longer are you confined to the traditional round cake tin or the square cake tin, although these are still available. Here is a sample list of what you can get:

• Number cake tins – ideal of the celebration of your young child’s birthday.
• Heart cake tins – may be you want to impress your partner on Valentine’s Day by baking a heart shaped cake for him or her.
• Novelty cake tins – bake a cake for your child based on his/her favorite Sesame Street character (e.g. Elmo), or perhaps a music themed cake (e.g. using a guitar cake tin), or a sports themed cake (e.g. using a football cake tin), animal themed (e.g. butterfly cake tin).