|
Your daughter comes home and tells you that she wants you to help her make a cake for the baking contest at school. So you preheat the oven and then help her carefully measure all the ingredients. You grease and flour your pan and pour the batter in. You wait the designated 40 to 50 minutes, try the toothpick test and decide the cake is done and you remove it from the oven.
After allowing it to cool slightly you prepare to remove it from the pan. First you slide a spatula down the sides of the cake, carefully attempting to slide it under the bottom of the cake to ensure the cake doesn't stick. Then you grab a plate and flip the cake upside down and OH NO!!! half the cake is still in the pan. Your daughter runs to her room crying and you sit there wondering where you went wrong (with the cake, not your daughter).
Here's a simple trick to use when making a cake to keep it from sticking to the pan. After applying grease and flour to the cake pan, take a plain piece of typing paper and lay it across the bottom of the pan. There's no need to grease or flour the typing paper. Pour the batter on top of the typing paper and bake the cake like normal. After the cake is done, allow it to cool 5-10 minutes. As usual, slide a spatula down the side of the cake, but not under the cake, as this might crumple the paper or cause the cake to split. Take a flat piece of clean cardboard (or the bottom of a cake carrier) and lay it on top of the cake pan. Flip the cake over and gently bounce the combination of the cake and "lid". Carefully remove the pan and underneath you'll discover a complete cake just waiting to be placed right side up and then iced. You will probably have to "peel" the typing paper off the bottom of the cake as it tends to stick to the cake.
The typing paper will not burn during cooking and does not affect the taste or texture of the cake in any way. You can also use a brown paper sack cut to fit the cake pan. Do not use newspaper or any other paper with printed matter on it.
This trick also works well with loaf pans or mini loaf pans as well as with cupcake pans if you want to take the time to cut the paper to the proper size. This also makes for easy clean up afterwards.
| 
