Preparing Detailed Cake Pans - To Flour Or Not To Flour?
Decorating By BakingGirl Updated 11 Nov 2009 , 3:38pm by sillychick
I bought William and Sonoma's sandwich cookie pan recently. Last night I decided to use it for the first time so I set to work on the recipe which is printed on the back of the box, a dark chocolate cake which contains both cocoa and real chocolate.
The instructions says to grease with shortening and a brush, which I did. Then to liberally dust with cocoa. I did stop at this point and think long and hard about that. I am not entirely convinced by dusting the pan, my theory is that the flour/or cocoa mixes with the grease and makes a paste which makes things stick. My method is just plain Pam. Still I went against my gut and floured the pan.
The cake finished baking, I put it on a rack to cool for a bit and then flipped it out...... nope, not coming out..... a little tap...... nothing......... another tap... still nothing........ leave it for a bit...... a big tap...... nope, still nothing....... a sharp hard tap...... oooooh, it is coming out - in two pieces! The second cake came out whole after similar coaxing, but I lost some of the detail on the top.
I know there is only way to find out if it is better to skip the flouring step, and I will bake the cake again to check, but what is your experience when you bake in detailed cake pans?
Do you flour or don't you flour the pan?
I haven't floured my baking pans ... any kind, any shape ... for over 30 years. Cakes come out better, rise higher, no crumbs, beautiful color.
I've never purchased a special brush to apply my grease either. I use a sheet of wax paper or just don a food safety glove.
I remember seeing pictures of your cakes Indy in an old post about greasing pans, and yours are so high and nice that it convinced me that flouring pans is not necessary. But I guess I was weak in this instance, thinking that it would not work with all that detail in the pan. Next time I will be strong!!
I'm confused...so you just "grease" the pan but don;t follow with flour?
What kind of grease? butter? shortening?
You can use the CK Brand Pan Grease (my 1st choice); Wilton's Pan Release ..... but what I use the most is just plain 'ole Crisco. No flour.
I ALWAYS grease (Crisco) and flour my pans. Pam makes my cakes stick to the pan. I learned the hard way not to take shortcuts and to do it the right way the first time.
I normally just use regular Pam, not the baking Pam with flour. I do put parchment in the bottom of the pan though, which is why I chickened out and dusted the W&S since it had so much detail and I could not use parchment. Never again!
I ALWAYS grease (Crisco) and flour my pans. Pam makes my cakes stick to the pan. I learned the hard way not to take shortcuts and to do it the right way the first time.
I dont' like Pam either .... it makes the cakes "crusty" on the outer edge.
I discovered the "dont' flour the pans" by accident. I greased the pans and forgot to flour them. I poured the batter in before I realized there was no flour. Crap! Then just thought, "Oh hell with it!" and baked them anyway.
The best looking, highest rising, easiest to remove from the pan cakes I'd ever made. That's when I discovered that flour in the pan creates a thin layer of baked flour on the cake, which was mixing in with my icing, which made the cake yucky (this was WAY before I started "decorating" and was just making a cake for the family.)
Never used flour again .... never looked back.
This is great info! I always spend time making pan grease (which works great) but any time saved is money earned! Plus not having to keep a container of it in my fridge, or running out when I'm already in a time crunch. Thanks folks!!
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