Hi there,

I have been baking with the FromScratchSF white cake recipe for a few weeks now and I love how it has the texture of a box cake. But I also find it is difficult to frost like a box cake mix.  The cake does not come out clean on the sides for me.  Too wet/too much wet ingredients? Not baking long enough? I'm using bake even strips so perhaps that is the cause? Also, I usually make three layer cakes and bake each layer separately rather than torting.  Sometimes just one of the three pans gives me a hard time.  They are spaced evenly in the oven and I rotate them around.  So weird.  I cannot figure out what is going on. I attached pictures to show you what my cakes are looking like when baking and after removing from pans.  Maybe some of you experts can shed some light for me.    This first pic below you can see how it's all crumbly around the edges. Next pic you can see the other two layers are perfect! Green cake pics show how it looks when it is still in the pan, but is going to get stuck in pan a little.  Almost like the sides aren't cooking.

thanks!

Alice

AI'm sure this is silly, but are you greasing te sides? I also like to use parchment on the bottom.

The 2 cakes on the side look perfectly baked but I also looks like a tiny bit of them stuck to the pan. The other one stuck so much I wonder I it was greased less?

i don't know

i use a parchment on the bottom of my cake pan and i do not grease the sides in the hope that it will climb as high as possible up the sides

i run a knife around the inside of the cake pan -- your mangled cake has been clipped by the knife--it is not straight up and down--it's angled on the side there in the photo

but then i tap the cake pan against the counter every which way to make the cake slide in all directions in the pan so it's all patted 'together' as much as possible before flipping it out

so it's hard to say for sure but that's how i do it and maybe watch the angle of the knife when you loosen the sides

I have started using wax paper on the bottom to ensure they come out, but have never had to before.  My other recipes come right out of the pan. I use pam for baking with flour in it.  Works great.  I now use the spray and wax paper to ensure bottoms come out, but like I said it's just one of the three pans.  So weird. These were 6" pans so they all fit with plenty of room around them.

Cake was very moist/wet and fluffy too!

make sure there is no water content in the spray--

weird that it just does it for one pan--was it washed differently or something? some in the dishwasher some not or something to change the surface of that one?

did you scrape the bowl down good & make sure all was evenly incorporated in the batter???

I think you should grease and flour the sides of the pan, even if it doesn't bake as high as you want.  If I don't grease and flour my pans the same thing happens.

AI use butter on the sides & bottom, no flour, & parchment on bottom.

Not sure wax paper is a good idea.

Weird that its only on the one pan. Maybe the Pam didn't evenly spray that one?

The only time you don't want to grease sides of a pan is for an angel food cake.  I always spray the bottom and the sides.
 

waxed paper is fine--no worries

fwiw--i do not grease the sides of my cake pans and they come out fine ;)

I use Baker's Joy and spray heavily.  I also use parchment for the bottoms, and I haven't had any stick.

while we are on the subject of those handy dandy sprays

let me heart heart heartily encourage all of you to not breath that stuff in to your lungs not even a little bit

step outdoors, step onto the porch, wear a dust mask, hold your breath then spray and leave the room, turn on a fan, open the window

seriously

and if not for you--do it for the kids and pets--and for nice pink lungs everywhere ;)

And just my thought, I use the homemade recipe for cake pan spray, but I use a silicone brush to apply it.

1 cup each of flour, crisco, and oil, blend together till it looks like paste, and you can store it for months. I usually make a double batch and freeze half. It is awesome.

Also, you want to hold your entire pan off your counter about 4" then drop it several times to the counter to even it out. At least that's how I do it.

If you half the recipe above and try it on a pan or two, post how your cakes turn out then. This stuff is wonderful, oops, I already said awesome. LOL

AI use the wilton cake release and use it on both bottom and sides of pan and never have had a problem.

Thanks everyone, I mixed everything evenly, sprayed evenly.  And have even started using wax paper on the bottoms but the sides still give me issues.  Wondering if the bake even strips were the same "wetness"?? I do have one large one that absorbs a lot more than others, wondering if the same has happened to the smaller ones. There is no rhyme or reason!  I will try to go back to greasing and flouring. The spray is just so much easier and my chocolate cake comes right out. I didn't run my knife around the pan hardly it all. It had already pulled away from the sides in chunks like that when it started to cool on the rack.   So weird which is why I took the pictures. It happen when I use the fromscratchSF recipe. 

AHave you tried the wilton cake release? It's very easy to use, maybe you can't get it where you are located I don't know where you Are from so I don't know if you can get the cake release. I don't use a lot of wilton products but I do use this one. I've never tried the scratch recipe form scratchs website but have used other scratch recipes without a problem. Another thing is when you use the strips they tell you to wet them than take your two fingers and run the strips between them to get excess water out, not sure if you are doing that or not.

I think K8memphis may be correct about the knife around the sides. My cakes used to look like your photos when I used a knife around the sides to loosen the cake. I read on here where someone shook the cake pan a little after taking it out of the oven to loosen the side of the cake away from the pan. I tried it and my cakes have been fine since. 

I do sometimes have trouble with my 6 inch cakes having crumbling sides when I use a Wilton pan. Are your cake pans Wilton brand? My Fat Daddio and Magic Line pans work better for 6 inch cakes.

AMost of my pans are wilton but I do have a few of the brands that you listed and I use the cake release on them ad well with good results.

I happen to be baking cakes as I'm reading this.

I don't usually have a problem with my cakes sticking (I've always greased & floured my pans, including the sides, and usually run a thin spatula around the sides).  However, this time, as I took one of my cakes out of the oven, I tried the shaking thing.  Worked like a charm!  The cake visibly moved in the pan, and I know when it's cooled the appropriate length of time, it will just tip out.

I love learning new stuff.

AI have had problems baking scratch white cake with the baking strips. The recipe I use is a very tender cake and it came out almost like a custard on the edges. I think it needed the extra heat to set the edge because it was so moist and tender and the baking strips tipped it past moist and tender into gluey/wet/soggy. Maybe try wringing out your baking strips more or use a cake nail rather than the strips. I did not have a problem using strips on my scratch yellow. Just the white.

AI too have heard of the shaking your cakes after thet have cooled a bit but I've always used the cake release without a problem.

AHere's a website with some tips maybe it will answer the question.

tipnut.com/cake-baking-tips/

Often when I use the wilton bake strips I find the cake sticks to the sides so I now use baking paper around the sides as well as the bottom, it works! Having said that I baked this cake (the egg yolk version) and it shrunk away from the sides of the tin and looked a little fragile, (tasted fine though, still moist). Any thoughts?

ATry wilton cake released spray..it works wonderS :-)