Doughnut Pan

oommmgoodness..thank you for that answer! I might try NY Cake and Bake, or even Broadway Panhandler...! Thanks again!

The wilton has a more authentic, round donut shape. But the stupid thing about it is that the middle part (that created the hole in the middle) is shorter than the sides of the pan and as a result you may have to punch a hole through the donuts after they are done baking so that they look like donuts, since when the batter rises, it just covers the middle piece. This also sometimes causes them to stick.

The norpro pan is better in that regard. The middle part of the donut mold even rises slightly above the surface of the rest of the pan, so there is never any issue of sticking or overflow. The problem with this pan is that the donut shape doesn't look authentic. I'm not sure why, but the shape of the mold gives the donuts square corners where they should be more rounded. It is hard to explain you just kind of have to see the pan. So, I mainly use Wilton pans and deal with the issues they present.

One other thing I should mention is that the wilton pans make slightly smaller donuts. I have used another type of pan that belonged to another baker. These were better than mine but I have no idea what the brand is.

Honestly, there is no perfect donut mold out there right now. For one thing, nonstick pans are cheap and do not last. I don't use nonstick bakeware for this reason, but all of the donut pans out there are nonstick coated. For another thing, it makes more sense to make donuts in large batches (how long do they expect 6 donuts to last?!). I think a donut mold that made 24 would be more appropriate. I spend way too much effort fussing over all the 6 cavity donut pans in my oven.

I also have mini donut pans that have 12 cavities and work the best of all the ones I've tried. Unfortunately, I bought it at NY Cake and Bake where nothing comes packaged and they don't tell you what the brand is.

That's my rant about donut pans! The last thing I would say is that the crispy/moist situation depends more on your batter, and not the pan. Ideally, for the perfect baked donut you would use a preheated cast iron pan. Hopefully, one day this will be invented. Until then, we will all just have to tweak our recipes to make the perfect batter.

The Wilton one works for me, I bought it because I had a gift certificate to SLT. But I am sure a company like Nordicware makes a great pan as well.