Cake Pan Sizes

Have you ever wondered what to do when maybe you have an odd-sized cake pan? Or perhaps the recipe is made for one type of pan, but you have something else. Here you go, now you can figure out which cake pan to grab when you are making a cake recipe.

Cake Pan Sizes – Conversions

Have you ever wondered what to do when you have an odd-sized cake pan? Or perhaps the recipe is made for one type of pan, but you have something else? Cake pans come in a wide range of different shapes and sizes. They may be round or rectangular (like a loaf pan), or even heart-shaped. Pans of different sizes are able to contain varying amounts of cake batters. These differences in capacity must be factored in when a recipe gives you a pan size that you don’t have, and you are wondering which size pan in your kitchen you can substitute. Here are some helpful tips on how to measure a pan and some other things to keep in mind:

• When you want to figure out your pan’s size, always measure from inside edge to inside edge. This avoids including the pan’s thickness in your assessment of its size.

• When measuring the depth of your pan, position your ruler on the bottom of the pan and keep it straight up – do not slant the ruler.

• To work out how much volume your pan will hold, pour pre-measured cups of water into the pan until the pan is filled to the brim.


Using a larger pan means that the depth of your batter will be shallower and your batter will bake much more quickly. This is because heat will reach the center of the pan more rapidly and cause more evaporation. To get around this, you will need to shorten the baking time and raise the oven temperature slightly.


Using a smaller pan means that the depth of your batter will be deeper and your batter will take longer to bake because the deeper batter will cause less evaporation. To keep your batter from over-browning, you will need to make the baking time longer and lower the oven temperature a bit. 


The ideal pan to substitute for the one in the recipe is one that keeps the same batter depth even though it’s a different shape. This avoids you having to make changes in baking temperature and time. Here’s an example – if your recipe calls for an 8 x 8-inch square pan (64 square inches), you could use a 9 inch round pan (63.5 square inches) without making any changes to the oven temperature or baking time.

Here’s a handy chart for you. Now you can figure out which cake pan to grab when you are making a cake recipe and bake a perfect cake every time.