14 Types of Baking Pans to Build a Stocked Home Bakery

Here is a list of the essential bakeware that every baker should own:

1. 1. Baking sheets: These flat pans with raised edges are ideal for baking cookies, scones, and pastries like croissants—and they also do double-duty as roasting pans for vegetables, fish, and spatchcocked meat. Sheet pans are also known as cookie sheets, but a true cookie sheet only has a rolled edge on one side for handling, while the rest of the sides are open to allow for easy transfer of cookies to a cooling rack.
2. 2. Bundt pan: Bakers use bundt pans to bake decorative bundt cakes, spongy angel food cakes, and tear-and-share pastries like monkey bread. This unique pan has an open center and especially deep slopes. After baking, cakes are inverted onto a serving plate to reveal a mountainous, raised donut shape, perfect for cascading glazes or showers of powdered sugar.
3. 3. Cake pans: You can use nonstick cake pans to bake an inverted cake like a tarte Tatin or in batches to create towering layer cakes. While cake pans come in various shapes and sizes, the most common is a nine-inch round cake pan, which holds about four cups of batter, and a 9x13 rectangular pan for sheet bakes like brownies.
   
4. 4. Cocotte: Also known as a Dutch oven, the lid of this heavy-duty cast-iron pot traps steam, mimicking the effect of a stocked bakery. Use a 12-inch cocotte for making sourdough and other free-form loaves.
5. 5. Half-sheet pan: These flat pans with raised edges are ideal for baking cookies, scones, and pastries like croissants—and they also do double duty as roasting pans for vegetables, fish, and spatchcocked meat. Sheet pans are also known as cookie sheets, but a true cookie sheet only has a rolled edge on one side for handling, while the rest of the sides are open to allow for easy transfer of cookies to a cooling rack.
6. 6. Loaf pan: Loaf pans are perfect for making pound cakes, quick breads, shaped pastries like babka, set desserts like panna cotta, flan, or mousse, or savory dinners like meatloaf. To make a perfectly square loaf of French pain de mie, or any standard sandwich bread with minimal crust, use a Pullman loaf pan, which has a lid that closes off its high sides, preventing a rise. You can transform a regular loaf pan into a makeshift Pullman loaf pan by placing a weighted down sheet pan on top.
7. 7. Muffin pan: A must-have for muffins, cupcakes, yeasted pastries like morning buns, kugelhopf, or popovers, a muffin pan features 12–24 inset wells with angled walls. These pans are also available as silicone molds for even easier release.
8. 8. Nonstick bakeware: A nonstick bakeware set is perfect for beginning bakers thanks to its nonstick coating that makes it hard for batters to stick to the pan’s surface. The pan set typically comes with a bread pan, cookie sheet, and various cake pans. Additionally, nonstick bakeware is often dishwasher safe, making for an easy clean-up so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.
9. 9. Pie dish: The wide fluted edges of a pie dish make for easy crimping of golden brown, buttery pie crust. Ceramic or glass pie plates heat slowly and evenly, perfect for the long baking times needed to create a tasty pie. For classic deep-dish seasonal pies, this baking dish is a must. Wide fluted edges make for easy crimping of golden brown, buttery crust, and ceramic or glass heats slowly and evenly, perfect for the long bakes needed to pull off a perfect pie.
10. 10. Pizza pan: Homemade pizza is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and it’s nearly impossible to pull off without a pizza pan. A perforated base allows air and heat to flow for an even, crisp crust. A step above the pizza pan is the pizza stone, a heat-conducting baking stone that you can place in an oven or grill and used to cook freeform pizzas, flatbreads, and loaves.
11. 11. Springform pan: You can use a springform pan to bake goods with open, set sides, like a cheesecake or shortcrust tart, but you can also use it for the easy-release of cakes. This handy pan has an interlocking base that fits into an expandable rim fitted with an outer latch. Once the dish has been baked and allowed to set, simply flip the latch and carefully lift the outer rim away.
12. 12. Square pan: To make brownies, sheet cakes, caramels, or cut cookies with high sides, use a square cake pan (typically 9x9 inch) or a rectangular baking pan, also known as a “quarter sheet” (9x13 inch). These pans are also useful in making savory layered dishes like lasagna, casseroles, or chicken enchiladas.
13. 13. Tart pan: Tart pans are a shallow round pan with fluted edges and removable bottoms. Similar to a springform pan, you can remove the crimped edges after baking for a stunning, crisp display of delicate savory or sweet tarts, as well as quiches.
14. 14. Tube pan: Also known as an angel food cake pan, the tube pan is a must-have for angel food cake devotees. This round pan has a hollow tube in the center, straight sides, and a removable bottom that allows for an easy release of the cake. The hollow tube in the center helps evenly cook the cake’s interior while the uncoated, ungreased straight sides allow the cake to rise easily throughout the baking process. You can also use this pan to make bundt cakes and tube pan cakes.

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