Now, shopping for shaped cake pans has become as much of an art as decorating them is! Many people who are avid bakers keep their locations secret so that they won’t sell out. In this article, I will show you where I find mine at, and where to find the best deals.

Baking is becoming very popular once again due to popular shows on the Food Network and Bravo, but finding the pans is still difficult. This is why I want to share all of this with you. If you want to find the pans locally, you have two places that aren’t always available. First, spend some time cruising local garage and yard sales to find many of the old school and outdated pans for very cheap. Like I said, this doesn’t always work, but when it does you can score lots of shaped cake pans for next to nothing. Another place to look locally is restaurant supply stores. These stores will have the pans exceptionally cheap, but you may not be able to shop there unless you have a wholesaler’s license. Even if you don’t have a license they still may be worth checking out to see what’s available.

If you have no luck locally, turn to the web. Amazon.com has tons of cake pans for sale at great prices. On most orders they will offer free shipping if the total is over $25. eBay is also an excellent place to find the out of print cake pans, especially the Star Wars pans that are becoming very popular once again (this is where I got my Darth Vader cake pan!). Expect to pay a premium for the old pans though, since they are much more rare and hard to find. Each of the pan manufacturers have websites that sell the pans there. You aren’t going to find much of a deal by shopping on their sites, but if you know exactly what you want they will probably have it in stock.

These are all of the places that I look when I’m shopping for shaped cake pans. There are a few other options, but none of them are as safe and easy as these. If you have any secret spots, please share them with the world in the comments section below!