Wouldnt it be nice if we all lived in spacious homes with enormous, well-stocked kitchens and enough funds to purchase and room to store any additions our little hearts desired? Yes, well, its a beautiful dream, but even if Bill Gates is now single, theres only one of him to go around. For most of us, well have to keep on making those difficult decisions as to which stuff fits into our cabinets and our budgets and which does not. Sometimes substitutions are required, such as using DIY self-rising flour made from the all-purpose kind, or making do with a Dutch oven instead of a cast-iron frying pan (or vice-versa).
One either-or decision you may have to make if you do a lot of baking is whether to purchase a bundt pan or a tube pan. While many recipes (such as a Sock-It-To-Me Cake) say you can use whichever one you please, these two pans are not always interchangeable. They are similar in many ways, yet they do have some significant differences that may come into play, depending on how you plan to use them.
A tube pan is a round pan with deep sides and a hollow center tube used for baking cake, especially angel food or sponge cake. A bundt pan is similarly constructed, but has fluted sides. Often, tube pans have detachable sides, which Bundt pans do not.
A tube pan by any other name
A bundt pan is actually a kind of a tube pan, but its like one of those elementary logic questions you find on standardized tests. All bundt pans are tube pans, so all tube pans must be bundt pans, true or false? Most definitely false.
Southern Living explains that the type of pan were usually referring to when we use the term “tube pan” is straight-sided, as opposed to fluted, like a bundt pan. The inside of the tube pan is also uncoated, which is what makes this the best type of pan to use for light and airy cakes such as angel food. In fact, such tube pans are also often known as “angel food pans.” Fun fact about angel food cakes: they dont contain any leavening agents like baking powder, but instead get all their “loft” from the air whipped into the batter. A tube pans straight, uncoated sides allow the batter to cling so the cake doesnt collapse as it rises.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Kitchen Encounters has a great article that goes into greater detail on fluted pans, plus some other great tips. Check out the article here!
Equipment Expert’s Top Pick for Tube Pans
FAQ
Is fluted the same as Bundt?
Can I use a Bundt pan instead of a fluted pan?
What is a flute tube pan?
Can I use a loaf pan instead of a tube pan?
What is the difference between a tube pan and a bundt pan?
A tube pan is a round pan with deep sides and a hollow center tube used for baking cake, especially angel food or sponge cake. A bundt pan is similarly constructed, but has fluted sides. Often, tube pans have detachable sides, which Bundt pans do not.
What is a bundt pan?
Bundt pans typically have fluted sides that give cakes a decorative sculpted shape that requires little embellishment—no fancy frosting techniques required. The pans can be ceramic, aluminum, and even cast iron. No matter the material, they are ideal for dense buttery cakes that have a tender, moist crumb, like butter, coffee, and pound cakes.
What is a fluted tube pan?
It’s pretty simple really. Fluted Tube Pan is used as a mold for the cake so the batter needs to be a little thicker than what you would use for a regular cake.
Do Bundt pans have a removable bottom?
One feature that tube pans often have but bundt pans lack is a removable bottom. Southern Living says that this makes it easier to remove the delicate cakes baked in such pans, especially since you can’t grease the pan as you might do with a bundt cake.