Baking is a blast and using creative and fun cake pans makes it an even better experience. With thousands of pans on the market and retired it’s impossible (or at least extremely expensive) to bake through all of them. Since that’s the case, I’ll recommend some of the ‘funnest’ ones that I’ve come across in all of my time baking.
It’s important to note that if you’re new to baking you should start with a cake pan that suits your skill. You don’t want to start off with something that is insanely difficult because you’ll end up frustrated and never wanting to bake again! Find a pan that has large blocks of solid color and not a lot of detail to get started.
My current favorite pan is the beehive cake pan. It’s a three dimensional cake pan that is a huge beehive with bees buzzing on it. What’s really cool about this cake is that it really doesn’t take much decoration to get it finished. If you bake a golden cake (that’s dense enough to hold itself up) all you need to do is decorate the bees and the entrance and you have a beautiful cake. This cake pan is extremely popular for Jewish New Year when honey cake is a popular dessert.
In my opinion, many of the best cake pans are retired. I remember decorating the Super Mario cake pan a long time ago and having so much fun with it. The Darth Vader cake was a blast as well. Neither of those pans are currently manufactured but you can still buy them from eBay and Amazon if you wish. You’ll pay for their rarity though, expect to pay $30 or $40 for them.
Spongebob and Elmo cake pans are also really fun to decorate and are still in print. You can usually get these pans for around $10.
Cake decorating is a past time that will never fade. People will always love to share their creativity and eat tasty cake. Have fun with it now and teach it to someone else so that the skills are never lost.