Mini-Muffin Tins

Everyone loves miniature muffins and cupcakes—they’re so cute! Our favorite mini-muffin tin, the Williams Sonoma Goldtouch Pro Nonstick Mini Muffin Pan, 24-Well, produced attractive baked goods that were evenly golden brown and released easily. There was also plenty of room around the rim, which meant that we could hold it securely, even while we were wearing thick oven mitts. Our Best Buy, the Wilton Perfect Results Premium Non-Stick Mini Muffin and Cupcake Pan, 24-Cup, was as easy to handle as our winner and also produced nicely shaped mini muffins and financiers. We docked it slightly because the foods we baked in it weren’t browned quite as evenly as foods we baked in our winner.

What You Need to Know

Mini-muffin tins are great when baking for children’s parties and any occasion where you want an assortment of small treats such as mini doughnut holes, mini muffins, and peanut butter cups. While the overall profiles of regular and mini-muffin tins are the same, the number of cups they contain differs (full-size muffin tins have 12 cups, and mini-muffin tins have 24). You can convert full-size muffin and cupcake recipes for mini tins, but it's not an exact science, so we developed a few guidelines (see below). 

What to Look For

• Models Made from Steel: Our top-rated tins were made of steel, which retains and disperses heat well. Models made from steel produced muffins and financiers that were evenly baked and well browned. While the tin’s material mattered more than its color, we noticed (as we’ve noted in previous reviews) that food baked in dark-colored tins browned faster than food baked in lighter-colored ones.
• Moderately Sized Cups: The capacities of the tins’ cups varied. Tins with smaller cups made tiny, perfectly proportioned versions of muffins and cupcakes, while bigger cups made for squat, unattractive baked goods.
• Narrow Cup Shapes: The shape of a muffin tin’s cups determines the shape of the baked goods. The cups on every model in our lineup were narrower at the base than at the top. The shape of our favorite tin’s cups produced baked goods that rose up and over the rims of the cups, forming cute, classically shaped muffins.
• A Wide Exterior Rim: Since we were most often wearing oven mitts while maneuvering muffin tins in and out of ovens, the tins with wide rims were much easier to use than those with narrower rims. The rims on the tins we tested ranged from a paltry ⅓ inch wide to 1⅔ inches wide. Tins with at least 1 inch of space gave us a place to put our hands without accidentally sticking a thumb into a baked good. In addition to having wide rims, two of the models in our lineup had grippy handles that m...
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