Buy the Naturals Half Sheet 2-Pack.Two bare-aluminum sheet pans with an encapsulated steel rim, a published 17.1 x 12.1 in baking surface and a lifetime warranty — and they are the piece of bakeware any kitchen uses most, which makes the pair the correct first purchase from this line for almost everyone. If you specifically want the pan Nordic Ware is famous for, that is the Original 12-Cup Bundt: cast aluminum, published to 425°F, made in the USA, and 12 cups is the capacity bundt recipes are written around. The budget pick is the Naturals 1.5-lb Loaf Pan — the cheapest piece on this page, uncoated aluminum, and the right pan for banana bread and quick breads. Live prices for all six, with the date they were fetched, are in the Quick picks table above.
The one rule that decides whether this line is for you
Nordic Ware's Naturals range is bare aluminum with no coating. That single fact explains everything people love and everything people complain about, so decide on it before you look at any individual pan.
What you get.Nothing to wear out, flake or scratch through, because there is no coating in the first place. Excellent, even browning, because aluminum is the most conductive metal in common bakeware. Published ceilings that are higher than coated pans can offer — the commercial muffin pan publishes 500°F, where a coated pan typically stops at 450°F. And an encapsulated steel rim, which is the detail that matters most: a steel wire rolled into the aluminum edge, which is what stops a thin aluminum sheet pan from buckling with a bang when it hits a hot oven.
What you give up.You must grease or line every bake, every time, because nothing releases on its own. The pans discolor — they go a mottled brownish gold after a few months and never look new again, which bothers some people and is purely cosmetic. And bare aluminum reacts with acidic batters over long contact, so a very acidic cake or a fruit filling is better off on parchment.
If that trade sounds wrong to you, the honest answer is a coated line, and ours is USA Pan. The two brands are built on opposite decisions and both are good.
The cast pans are a separate product
Worth separating, because people shop “Nordic Ware” as one thing and it is two. The Bundt and fluted tube pans are cast aluminum, not rolled sheet: thick, heavy, with a nonstick finish and a published 425°F ceiling that is lower than the bare Naturals pans. Thickness is the point. A cast pan holds heat steadily enough to bake the deep interior of a tube cake through before the fluted exterior over-browns, which a thin pan cannot do, and the detail in the mold is sharp enough to survive the release.
The Bundt pan is also the one piece of bakeware this company can fairly claim to have created, and 12 cups is the volume that became the standard a bundt recipe assumes. If a recipe does not state a pan volume, it means 12 cups. There is more on sizing in the best bundt pans.
The criteria we ranked on
1. Weeks per year in the oven. Sheet pans, every week. A loaf pan, most weeks if you bake quick breads. A Bundt pan, a handful of times a year but with nothing else able to stand in for it.
2. Published ceiling, because this line competes on it.Where a piece publishes a higher maximum than a coated rival, that is a real advantage and we weight it. Where it publishes a lower one — the cast pans at 425°F — we say so.
3. Rim construction. The encapsulated steel rim is the anti-warp feature and it is on every Naturals piece here. If you have had a sheet pan twist in a hot oven, this is the fix, and we go into it in how to keep baking sheets from warping.
4. Does it come as a pair? Two of the picks here are 2-packs, and that is a genuine advantage rather than a bundle trick. Two sheet pans let you rotate batches through one oven; two round pans are a complete layer cake with no waiting for the first pan to cool.
The six pieces on published specs
| Piece | Material | Published size | Max temp | Warranty |
|---|
| Naturals Half Sheet, 2-pack | Bare aluminum, encapsulated steel rim | 17.9 x 12.9 x 1 in (17.1 x 12.1 in surface) | Not published | Lifetime |
| Original Bundt Pan, 12 cup | Cast aluminum | 12-cup capacity | 425°F | Lifetime |
| Naturals Round Cake Pan, 9 in, 2-pack | Uncoated aluminum, encapsulated steel rim | 9 x 9 x 2.4 in | Not published | Lifetime |
| Natural Aluminum Commercial Muffin Pan, 12 cup | Uncoated bare aluminum, encapsulated steel rim | 12 wells | 500°F | Lifetime |
| Naturals Quarter Sheet with grid | Bare aluminum, encapsulated steel rim | Quarter-sheet footprint | Not published (grid included) | Lifetime |
| Naturals 1.5-lb Loaf Pan | Uncoated aluminum, galvanized steel rim | 9.1 x 5.3 x 2.8 in inside | Not published | Made in USA |
The blanks in the temperature column are deliberate. Several Naturals listings publish no maximum figure, and we are not going to assume one from the commercial muffin pan's 500°F just because it is the same metal — a published figure is a published figure. What is consistent and verifiable across the line is the material, the rim and the lifetime warranty.
Which pieces to actually buy
If you are buying one thing
The half sheet 2-pack. It is the most-used bakeware in any kitchen and the pair is what lets you bake in rotation instead of waiting. The best baking sheets ranks it against the rest of the category and what size baking sheet covers whether a half sheet fits your oven.
If you want the pan the brand is known for
The Original 12-Cup Bundt. Buy 12 cups unless you have a specific reason not to, because it is the capacity recipes assume. The 15-cup Anniversary pan is the one to get if you double recipes, and it is ranked in the best bundt pans.
If you are avoiding coatings
This whole Naturals line, and the commercial muffin pan in particular: uncoated bare aluminum with a published 500°F ceiling, which is a figure no coated muffin pan can offer. Use paper liners and the lack of coating costs you nothing. More in bakeware without nonstick coating.
If you have a small oven or bake small batches
The quarter sheet with the oven-safe grid. It fits most toaster ovens, the grid lets you roast or cool on the same pan, and it is the pan to own if your half sheets never actually come out full. It is ranked in the best cooling racks for the grid, too.
How to live with bare aluminum
Three habits and the pans will outlast you. Grease or line every single bake — how to grease and line a pan takes a minute. Let the discoloration happen and stop trying to scrub it off; it is cosmetic and scrubbing only scratches the surface. And keep acidic batters and fruit fillings on parchment rather than in direct long contact with the metal.
What we did not feature, and why
The 15-cup Anniversary Bundt and the 10-cup Heritage Bundt are in our registry and are not here because this page would otherwise be half Bundt pans. Both are ranked in the best bundt pans, which is the right page for choosing between capacities and mold patterns.
The nonstick baking and cooling grid (43343)is a rack rather than bakeware and publishes a 400°F ceiling, below the rest of the line. It is ranked in the best cooling racks.
Nordic Ware's novelty and cakelet pans are a large part of what the company sells and none are in our registry, because a cast pan shaped like a sunflower is a purchase about the shape rather than about baking performance, and we have nothing useful to add about choosing between them.
