KitchenAid 12-Cup Nonstick Muffin Pan

What the maker puts in writing

• “NONSTICK: Swiss-engineered heavy-duty coating allows for nonstick release when baking”
• “VERSATILE: Great for everyday baking, from whipping up cookies, bars, jelly rolls, and sheet cakes, to making easy one-pan weeknight meals”
• “EXTENDED HANDLES: provide a secure grip for easy transport, making transferring pan in and out of the oven safer and simpler, even when wearing pot holders”
• “EVEN BAKING: Aluminized steel construction promotes consistent heat distribution across the pan”
• “DISHWASHER SAFE: for easy cleanup”
• Description: “perfect for making 12 evenly sized and shaped muffins, cupcakes, and egg bites” · “stands up to high heat” · “features a uniquely designed rim to prevent warping”
• From the name: “12 Cup, Evergreen”
• Reference KQ958OSFFA · Catalog: 794 g (28 oz), 422 × 290 × 40 mm (16.6 × 11.4 × 1.57 in)

Twenty-two dollars for one pan, on a shelf where six cost thirty-two

The Amazon Basics six-piece set at $31.99 contains a 12-cup muffin pan — along with a 9 × 5 loaf pan, two 9-inch round cake pans, a 13 × 9 roast pan and a 13 × 9 baking sheet.

That is $5.33 a piece. This single pan is four times that, and two thirds of the price of the whole set.

The Elbee eight-piece at $59.99 also includes muffin cups, at $7.50 a piece.

And the arithmetic goes further. Three of the six Amazon Basics pieces have direct equivalents sold singly here:

GoodCook 9 × 5 loaf — $5.99 GoodCook 13 × 9 bake & roast — $9.99 this 12-cup muffin pan — $21.99

Those three alone come to $37.97. The set of six is $31.99.

What the money does buy here is real but narrow: aluminized steel, which Amazon Basics does not claim (“heavy-weight steel”) and Elbee does not name at all; 794 grams, the heaviest single pan on this shelf; extended handles; and a known brand.

What it does not buy is information. No cup diameter, no cup depth, no cup volume, no oven limit, no gauge — and five bullets lifted verbatim from the maker’s own loaf pan.

If you need only a muffin pan, this is the most expensive way to get one here. If you need two or more pans, the six-piece set is cheaper than the pieces.

Twelve cups, and not one cup dimension

The description says “12 evenly sized and shaped muffins, cupcakes, and egg bites” and gives no dimension of any kind.

The catalog gives only the tray: 422 × 290 × 40 mm — 16.6 × 11.4 × 1.6 inches. The 40 mm is the overall height, so the cups are shallower than an inch and a half once the rim and base are allowed for.

Why cup size is the figure a buyer needs.

Paper cases come in sizes, and a standard American muffin case does not sit in a smaller cup. A recipe is written in cup volume — twelve muffins from a given batter means twelve cups of a given size, and a pan with smaller cups gives you fourteen muffins’ worth of batter and twelve holes. Egg bites, which the description names, are filled near the brim: volume-critical.

Nothing else on this shelf gives a cup size either, and that is a short list. Amazon Basics says “a 12-cup muffin pan”; Elbee says “a pair of muffin cups”, which is vaguer still — “a pair” could be two trays or two cups among eight pieces.

And the comparison that stings: the nearest thing to an individual-portion tin on this shelf publishes its taper in full. The Waytiffer mini pie tins at $9.99 give “4.5 inch diameter on top and 2.5 inch diameter on bottom”. A twenty-cent disposable foil tin is better specified than a $21.99 steel pan.

Seven hundred and ninety-four grams, which is what a muffin tray needs

This is the heaviest single pan on this shelf.

The shelf, by single-pan weight:

this — 794 g MegaGrip 8 × 8 — 310 g GoodCook 9 × 5 — 268 g GoodCook 8 × 4 — 204 g each (408 g for two) Waytiffer foil loaf — 12 g · Waytiffer foil pie tin — 2.2 g Amazon Basics — 302 g a piece (1814 g for six) · Elbee — 454 g a piece (8 pounds published, the only item here to state its own weight)

So this is roughly two and a half times the average Amazon Basics piece — and that set’s piece list includes a muffin pan.

On a muffin tray, mass is the specification that matters most. A twelve-cup pan is a perforated sheet: pressing twelve holes into one panel removes most of the material that would otherwise resist bending. That is why a cheap muffin tray rocks on a countertop after a few bakes, and why the pressed cups themselves distort out of round.

And the description names the mechanism, which is the right one: “features a uniquely designed rim to prevent warping.” A rolled or beaded rim stiffens a panel in bending — the same reason a folded edge holds a sheet of paper flat — and it is the only anti-warp mechanism described anywhere on this shelf rather than simply asserted. GoodCook credits the steel three times; Amazon Basics says “heavy-weight steel construction”; Elbee says only “rust resistant”.

What is still missing is the gauge. Weight is a proxy, not a substitute, because the handles and the cup depth both add mass independently of thickness. No item on this shelf publishes a thickness of anything.

Aluminized steel, and the rim is where it earns its keep

“Aluminized steel construction promotes consistent heat distribution across the pan” · “stands up to high heat”

It is carbon steel hot-dipped in an aluminum-silicon alloy, bonded metallurgically rather than painted on. It buys conduction — aluminum conducts about three times better than steel, so the surface spreads a hot spot before the batter sees it — and corrosion resistance, because the aluminum layer does not rust.

On a muffin pan the second matters more than on any other shape here. A twelve-cup tray has twelve times the internal corner of a flat pan, and corners are where a pressed coating is thinnest and where a knife or a spoon goes when a muffin sticks. Plain carbon steel rusts at every one of those breaks. Aluminized steel does not.

The shelf, by material: aluminized steel — this and the 9 × 5 loaf pan at $14.99, the only two · plain carbon steel — the four GoodCook pans and the Sur La Table at $11.70 · unstated — Amazon Basics and Elbee · 100 percent aluminum foil — the two Waytiffer packs.

The color pulls the other way, and no page here mentions it. This pan is Evergreen — the darkest finish on the shelf. A dark surface absorbs radiant heat; a light one reflects it. So at the same setting this browns faster at the cup wall than a reflective pan would — which for a muffin, where you want a set crust and a tender crumb, is not obviously the direction you want. The maker’s own 9 × 5 is Contour Silver and reflective; the Sur La Table is Linen White; the GoodCook pans are gray.

The one page on this shelf that sells color as a feature says nothing about any of this.

Five bullets shared with a loaf pan, and one of them is false of both

Every bullet on this page appears word for word on the KitchenAid 9 × 5 loaf pan at $14.99.

Including bullet two: “Great for everyday baking, from whipping up cookies, bars, jelly rolls, and sheet cakes, to making easy one-pan weeknight meals.”

A twelve-cup muffin tray cannot bake any of the four. A jelly roll is a thin sheet of sponge baked flat and rolled; a sheet cake needs the same shallow rimmed sheet; cookies need a flat tray; bars need a square or rectangular pan. This pan has twelve holes in it.

Nor can the loaf pan, which is where the same bullet also appears.

The description, which is written per product, is accurate: “perfect for making 12 evenly sized and shaped muffins, cupcakes, and egg bites.”

So the page states three correct uses in the description and four wrong ones in bullet two.

Compare the maker that writes per pan. The GoodCook 13 × 9 at $9.99 publishes “ideal size for a full box of cake, brownie, or other dessert mixes” — specific, checkable, and true of that pan and no other on this shelf.

Read bullet two as collection boilerplate. This pan makes muffins, cupcakes and egg bites.

Extended handles, on the pan with nowhere else to hold

“EXTENDED HANDLES: provide a secure grip for easy transport… even when wearing pot holders”

On a muffin tray this is the most useful of the three handling solutions on this shelf, because a twelve-cup pan has no spare edge anywhere: the cups run almost to the sides, and the only material not occupied by a hole is the narrow web between them and the rim.

The three approaches here:

Extended handles — this and the 9 × 5 loaf pan: tabs projecting beyond the body, hands away from the hot walls Silicone grips — the GoodCook MegaGrip 8 × 8 at $10.09, the only silicone grips on the shelf Wide rims — the GoodCook 13 × 9 at $9.99

The other eight items say nothing at all.

And the catalog shows what the handles cost in footprint. 422 × 290 mm is 16.6 × 11.4 inches for a twelve-cup tray — against 16.26 × 11.73 inches for the whole Amazon Basics six-piece stack. This single pan has almost exactly the footprint of a six-piece set in its box.

On a 22-inch oven shelf that is one pan across and nothing beside it, which is worth knowing if you bake two dozen at a time. No handle projection is published, here or anywhere on this shelf.

What is not published

No cup diameter, no cup depth and no cup volume, on a pan whose entire identity is its cups.

No oven temperature limit, behind “stands up to high heat”. Only the Amazon Basics set (428 °F, exactly 220 °C) and the Elbee set (420 °F, plus convection) publish a figure — and muffins are commonly baked at 400 to 425 °F, which brushes both.

No gauge or thickness, as above, behind the heaviest single pan on the shelf.

No metal-utensil claim, where GoodCook claims it on three of four pans. A muffin that sticks gets a knife run round it — twelve times — and this page does not say whether that is allowed. Twelve internal corners is the worst case for a coating on this shelf.

No coating composition. “Swiss-engineered heavy-duty” names an origin and a property. Only the Sur La Table at $11.70 states what its coating is free of — “PFOA, PFAS, PTFE Free” — and only by negation.

No statement on paper cases, on a pan sold for cupcakes.

No warranty and no country of manufacture, which no item on this shelf publishes.

Availability

Read on the day this page was built: $21 at the American Amazon shop.

Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.