best material for baking cakes/cookies/muffins

Stainless is not a good heat conductor. It is fine for cookware when it is sandwiched with aluminum, but you don't need tri-ply bakeware. Therefore, I think the best bakeware is aluminum - heavy aluminum that is uncoated. Don't spend a fortune on All Clad stainless bakeware, etc. As for cleaning, bakeware shouldn't be hard to clean. Use parchment or Silpat to line your bakeware and you won't have to scrub. Use a generous amount of shortening and/or flour on your pans and/or line them with parchment. They will wipe clean. The problem with registering for bakeware is that department stores and discount stores either offer obscenely expensive or very cheap bakeware. I get my cake pans from the cake supply store and my sheet pans from Costco. Places like Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table have a limited selection and high prices. You will find a far larger selection of sizes and shapes at a baking supply store. The quality will be better and the prices will be moderate. Take a look at the pans from Sugarcraft to get an idea:

Thanks for the tips. I am in need of replacing mine as well. I have a mish-mash of terrible things, and really need to do something differently.

Any good, inexpensive source for silpat? Last time I looked it was really pricey.

-L.

I wish I could find cheap Silpat, but so far it seems that the prices are fixed by what Silpat charges. I only have a couple and I only use them when I really need them. In most cases I use parchment. I get a pack of 50 full sheet pan liners at GFS Marketplace (Gordon Food Service) for about $3. They are folded over a half-sheet sized cake board in a plastic package. I cut through the sheets with a razor blade where they are folded (down the spine) without removing them from the package. That make a dispenser package of 100 half-sheet parchment sheets for $3 which lasts me at least 6 months. I use them as-is for sheet pans and cut them to line other pans. They are really convenient and make clean-up a snap. When the package is empty, I have a cake board as a bonus!

I just bought a silicone sheet - dark blue - for $4.50 in one of those supermarket aisle-cluttering displays. It doesn't have the fiberglass matrix for the silicone, but at that price, who cares. It's a flexible sheet of silicone that fits a half-sized sheet pan. I bought mine at either Kroger or Food Lion (it was a very, very busy day...).

It worked as well as the Silpat.

Pastorio

Cool - I will look for them! I keep asking for silpat as a present but no one gets the hint...

-L.