Hello TWD bakers! This week’s recipe gave me some food for thought for this post. The recipe this week is supposed to be made in a mini-Bundt pan. I happen to own one, but what if you don’t? What can you use?
I found a fabulous conversion guide here. It shows approximately how many cups of batter that a recipe calls for and what pans you can use if you don’t have the one called for. While this chart doesn’t specifically address mini-Bundt pans, I think that looking at the ingredients we can reasonably assume that this would make 6-8 muffins or 2 small loaves. Start with the lowest baking time and check every few minutes from there.
I love the hint that says to fill your pan with water to find out its true volume. I’ve done that on most of my pans that are oddly shaped or sized. I keep a handy list on the inside of my cabinet to help me remember for when I want to use my Festival Pan (9 cups) or my tea cake and candy mold (3 cups).
Any other good hints for subbing baking pans?
Keeping the list on the inside of your cabinet is a really good idea! I love lists, but that’s never occurred to me before. One of these days I get out all of my pans, do the water trick, and create the list. Thanks for the tip!
Thanks for doing the homework, Jules!
Thank you for the link! :>
that’s a great tool – so useful and smart! thank you.
I like your hint… I only own one festive oan, so going to measure it now
Funny thing is I have had that list bookmarked for a while now, but when I made this recipe I just baked it in a regular bundt without checking the conversion list. It came out fine, just short! LOL
It’s a very helpful table, but sometimes I am disappointed in the results because of what I might call the “surface area/volume” problem. The volumes might match but when I want thin, crispy brownies subbing a smaller pan just leaves me disappointed that I don’t have as many crispy edge pieces.
Thank you, thank you! My pan is in storage during my transition and this link is exactly what I stopped here to ask. :)
Thanks for the link! This helps a lot for volume. I measured all of my pans and made a document listing each pan and what its size in square inches (length x width for square and rectangle pans, and pi x radius squared for round pans). I use that a lot to find an equivalent, or close to equivalent size when I’m reducing a recipe. I also listed some pan sizes that I don’t have so that if one is called for in a recipe, I can see what I have that might work. It’s really handy to have so that I don’t have to calculate each time.
So how many cups is the recipe for the mini bundts? I want to make one large bundt, but make it more of a german chocolate type for my hubby for his birthday. Any ideas on how to make it look big and fluffy and not turn out short?