I've only used it once... so I'm no expert...
But a few things that worked for me...
I was afraid of it sticking... so I bought the Wilton Cake release for it and used quite a bit of it... it worked perfectly... the cake fell right out of the pan in perfect condition.
I baked at 325 instead of 350 because I was afraid of the edges cooking too fast and tasting bad. I think it took about an hour and ten minutes.
I made a practice one and didn't fill it enough... so I made a second one and didn't skimp... filled the pan pretty high and it came out better. (I was using a real barbie so needed the height. if you are using the pick it won't matter)
Good Luck! I found it was easy to work with. HTH! 
be sure to fill the pan a little more batter than you think it should be filled with. also, if you're going for a long dress (i.e. at least as long at the wondermold itself), then bake another round cake (like a 6-inch) to place the mold onto so you get more skirt length (otherwise, the skirt tends to be too short). if you only have an 8-inch round, freeze the cake and trim it, using the bottom of the wondermold cake as a guide. place your skirt cake on a board larger than the cake itself. if you're feeding a lot of people at a party, you can place it on a larger iced round, square, rectangular, or oval cake without doweling (this is handy too cause you have extra cake surface to do more decoration (the sides of the cake are great for piping pretty stuff too!), and to write messages, especially if you off-set the doll cake -- just be sure to handle with care, as the cake will be weighted unevenly). if you're doing cinderella, you could pipe pumpkins and vines, and ribbons and bows and flowers on the bottom cake. good luck!
Oh thankyou so much. Scoobam - I will definitely fill the pan a little more to get a fuller skirt. Aunt judy - thankyou for all your fabulous ideas. I love the idea of the pumpkins. I ned to make a cake to feed about 30 people - so I'll probably be putting this on top of a 10 or 12 inch round cake. Actually I may even put it on top of the flower pan - I just bought it recently and have been dying to use it.
once again thankyou you both and I will post a picture when I am done.
Hi, I just finshed my doll cake. I had heard that you needed to use more batter so I filled the pan about 1.5in from the top. Bad idea. Too much cake and it took FOREVER to cook. Even with a real barbie doll I think it would be much better to bake a separate 9in round then to have this fat cake that takes an hour to bake.
(can you tell it was driving me crazy? 
)
I just greased and floured as per usual. No problems with sticking.
Warning: I thought people were joking about the doll pick's hair. OMG! It's awful! Worse than a dollar store doll. I ended up using a tiny rubberband to pull the hair back into a bun and then cutting off the hair that was sticking out all over the place. 
Good luck!
bubblezmom: yes, overfilling can be a nightmare, as the centre begins to collapse and get dense, and then takes forever to bake, while the exterior toughens up. the way around this is to not overfill, but rather bake a round cake (or two) to supplement the skirt: place the mold cake on top of the round cake, and trim the round cake if neccessary (freeze first for easier carving). this will give you more skirt length, and a taller-looking doll.
i too prefer to use actual dolls rather than the picks, and i agree, doll hair in general is awful...like they all went out and got horrible plug-style hair replacements. in the past i've pulled the hair back tightly, so it's close to the head and covering the little holes in the front, and then twisted in the back and up in like a french twist, securing it with an actual mini-clip. the hair that sticks up can either be trimmed, or left like that for a "haute couture" look.
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