You're gonna hate this.

It depends on what kind of cake you're making.

For technical reasons, foam cakes like angelfood are usually made in tube pans. Pound cakes and other heavy cakes like fruitcake are traditionally loaf-shaped so the edges don't cook long before the center can. Bundt pans have also solved that problem, but a tube pan would be more likely used. Those sort of "Turk's head" pans weren't common outside professional kitchens.

Your ordinary butter cake is normally cooked in a round pan for eveness. I've noticed the corners of squares or rectangles can get too done compared to the sides & middle.

SOURCE: The American Woman's Cookbook by Berolzheimer, 1942 edition. She notes that with rationing of fats, desserts based on glazed sweet breads might be used rather than cakes.

Also, Hale, The Horizon History of Eating and Drinking.