Well, my first cake down the tubes. My husbands German Chocolate Birthday cake is half on the cooling rack and half still stuck to the bottom of the pans. I never dreamed that the part that would go wrong would be the getting it out of the pans part. I figured I would mess up on the decorating part When I try again can I put parchment paper in the bottom of my pans? Or does anyone know of a way to prevent it from sticking? I sprayed the pans with oil and floured them. The pans are also brand new Wilton pans. I am so upset!!! Please help with any ideas because I need to try again.

Susan

P.S. The cake tastes great. I'm sitting here eating it out of the pan it is stuck to.

I usually put parchment paper on all my round and square tins, whether they're Wilton or not.
Cheers
Nati

Thanks Nati. So I can just put in the parchment paper and then pour the batter in on top of it? Do I still need to grease and flour?

Susan,
For the wilton pans, I will grease the whole pan, then stick the parchment paper on the bottom. You can flour the sides once this is done, but i find that if the cake does stick to the sides you can run a sharp knife along it and it will come out. The most important is the bottom. For my other tins, i put paper on the base and on the sides as well.
Hope this helps
Nati

I never mess with the parchment paper--I only use the pan grease recipe found on this site and have never had a cake stick to the pan. I don't let them cool more than 5 minutes and they just pop right out, picture perfect every time. I also use the Wilton pans.

Edited to add: Ok, after checking under the search function, it is actually called Cake Release, which sounds much nicer than pan grease, no? And here's the link:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-1963-0-Cake-Release.html

hmmm Maybe it was just me then. I will check out the pan grease recipe and try again. My cakes were stuck to the sides and bottom. I ran a sharp knife around the sides but it was too late.

I have never used parchment either. I just grease and flour very well and like lotoftots said for smaller cakes I only let them rest about 5 min before I remove them from the pans. I think it was SquirrellyCakes that talked about the pans sometimes need to be used a few times before they are "seasoned" so to speak. I have noticed the newer the pan the more problems like that I have.

I use cake release and parchment but can say that I have never had a cake stick even when i do not use parchment. Cake release is awesome.

I wondered about that too but it seems like after I've baked a couple of cakes the pans start to behave themselves!

sort of like house-breaking the dog!

(oh dear...i think I'm a bit loopy this a.m. and I haven't even hit the drunk cherries or rum balls yet!)

Tis the season-you're supposed to hit those early in the day-start things off right!!!

I always grease and flour and never had a cake to stick...just be sure if you grease and flour when you are flouring the pan tap the out side to get a good coat ...I have found if I just let it slide around some places only get lightly coated..almost as if the flour raises as its sliding...just tap it around and you will get a nice even coat

I use wax paper to line bottom and just use the liquid shortening to grease the sides.

For my 3D pans, I use Cake Release.

Thank you everyone for your help. I just made another cake and had no sticking problems whatsoever!!! Granted I did grease the bottom and sides very well and then cover the bottom and sides with parchment paper. lol I was determined that this cake was not going to stick! Thanks again!! Y'all are the best

I have a coating recipe my cake decorating teacher shared with us. It is supposed to bake all the crumbs into the cake, and help the cake release from the pan without any trouble. You mix 2 cups flour, 1 cup veg. oil, and 1 cup Crisco. It looks pretty gross! But it stores as long on the shelf (covered and sealed) as Crisco would, and it never sticks. I don't know if it really bakes crumbs in better; since I've always used this recipe, I have no comparison.

I really prefer this to the grease and flour method, since I always made a mess with that. I haven't tried Cake Release--not sure what the cost/time benefits of it are, but I thought I'd throw this out as another option.

I use the pan coat recipe from here and it works beautifully ... There is one cake that I do, Italian Cream Cake, that if I do not coat the pans really heavy w/the pan coat, they will stick every time... so may try applying a heavier layer of pan coat and see it that works better for you.... Good luck!!