Preventing cakes from sticking to the pan

If it's something like an angel food cake or other type of foam cake such as a sponge cake or chiffon cake you don't want to spray the sides of the pan because the batter needs to cling to the sides of the pan as the cake rises. Cakes like that are often cooled in the pan upside down before removing them from the pan. If you greased the sides of the pan the cake could fall out when you turn the pan upside-down. For an ordinary butter type cake though I always grease both the bottom and the sides of the pan. Most recipes I've seen for butter or shortened cakes say to grease the sides of the pan.

djs0302, thanks for the reply. I think the cake she was baking was some kind of red velvet layer cake.

What I've used with good results are sprays such as "Baker's Joy" which contain flour. The provide enough tooth for an angel food cake, and still provide good release. Pam has a similar spray now, and a number of grocery stores have their own house-brand equivalents as well.

Mike

butter and flour!....lightly coat your pan with a thin layer of butter with a paper towel and sprinkle flour over top, turn your pan over and tap your pan to discard access flour. This is the oldest and truest way of stopping your cakes from sticking.

Mike Avery wrote:

I use parchment paper. It works very well for me

I second the parchment paper. Wow Mike. I haven't heard the name baker's job since I was a kid. Not sure how it stayed in my memory, but I remember their commericals. Maybe because there was cakes in them.

What do you use if you want the cake to climb the side of the pan?

I presume he had never baked a chiffon cake in tube pans....or would place a "makeshift stairway' for the cake batter to climb the pan sides ?

She conflated a lot of different baking conditions into one bit of advice. Unfortunately, what she said only applies sometimes. Chiffons and angel food cakes shouldn't be baked in greased or greased and floured pans (usually done in tube pans). Virtually all other cakes should be.

Keeping that fat and flour mix in her cupboard is an invitation to nasty-tasting rancidity.

Products like Baker's Joy on non-stick pans are great for the job. Cakes will come out without a fight. Dense cakes (fruit cakes, oil cakes, etc.) can benefit from a greased parchment or brown paper lining in the baking pan.

The old way of greasing or buttering and coating with flour puts a lot more fat and flour on the surfaces of the pan than the sprays. And sprays can be a lot more even.

Pastorio

I'm laughing at my last entry. I meant baker's joy not baker's job. I'm also laughing because I decided to bake an angel food cake and threw my back out trying to get the cake out of the oven. Who knew the lightest of cakes was so dangerous. Now I can only look at my crumb covered floor and have no idea what's happening on my cobweb covered ceiling. lol, but actually ouch.