One of the most frustrating experiences I've had as a baker is my cakes sticking to the pan. You lovingly make this beautiful batter, gently pour it in your greased and floured pan, and watch as it bakes up to fluffy, dreamy perfection.
You take it out, impatiently waiting for it to cool, and carefully slide a butter knife around the sides to loosen it. You tip it out onto your cooling rack and to your UTTER DISMAY, it's STUCK!
"But I greased the pan," you think. "This isn't supposed to happen!" You try to bang the pan, first gently, then harder. You use your butter knife to try and gently pry the cake out. Finally it releases, but to your horror, half of it is stuck to the bottom in ragged pieces, the bottom and sides of your cake pocked with more craters than the moon.
Stacking and layering a cake like this becomes a nightmare as you try to use your buttercream as glue to hold the cake together.
Your vision of a clean, smooth sided cake has evolved into a lumpy, goopy nightmare, and you swear off baking forever.
Have you ever felt this way? I know I have! BUT...it doesn't have to be this way! I'm going to share a quick tip for how to make sure your cakes NEVER stick again, so you can completely avoid this nightmare.
Step 1: Grease pan with shortening. Butter works too. Get in the sides and everything.
Step 2: Using parchment paper, cut a circle approximately the size of the bottom of your pan. A touch bigger is better than too small. Mine is a bit too small here. Stick this in the bottom of your pan.
Step 3: Cut 2 strips of parchment paper slightly wider than your pan is tall. Just estimate it, it doesn't have to be exact. Line the sides of your pan with it, going all the way down to the bottom edges. You can overlap the strips, but you will need to grease the sides of the overlapped section so it sticks.
Step 4: Grease the pan again on the parchment paper to adhere it to the sides and really squish it into the corners. Then you can pour your batter in and bake!
This may seem like a lot of steps for just greasing your pan, BUT it saves you time in the long run. Just look at the bottom of this cake! Not sticking at all.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that.
Happy baking, friends! And if you would rather leave the baking up to me, you can order one of my delicious cakes here!
-Rachel
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