Successfully Turning a Cake out of a Pan
Apr 8th, 2008 by satisfyte
The sun is shining today and it’s actually starting to feel warm. This means beach weather isn’t far away, and, lucky for us Satisfytes, the beach is absolutely loaded with satisfying things! But I will try to contain myself until Summer for all of those. Thinking about the beach made me think of how satisfying it is to make sandcastles, and this made me think of a very similar and very satisfying experience - successfully turning a cake out of a pan.
Most people have, at one point or another, baked a cake or helped bake a cake, even if that just meant standing there eating cake batter while your mom did all the work. The more cakes you’ve made, the higher probability that you’ve experienced one of the tragic downfalls of culinary arts - flipping the cake pan over, lifting it up, and having the cake still stuck inside. Then, after a lot of wiggling and jiggling, the cake falls out in several pieces, with half of its spongy goodness fused to the insides of the cake pan. You’re left with a hot mess (literally), and must attempt to salvage your would-be masterpiece with a spatula, a lot of adhesive frosting, and quite probably your bitter, salty tears.
But these awful experiences can make you enjoy a good cake removal all the more. To ensure optimum satisfaction while baking, follow these simple steps:
- Follow the directions! If your recipe says to only grease the bottom of the pan, do it. If it says to grease and flour all sides of the pan, do it. If it says not to grease it at all in a non-stick pan, you’d better keep your little butterfingers out of it.
- Be sure that you’re liberal with the grease. Nobody wants a mamby pamby nonstick spray with a spackling of flour over it. This will leave open spots and margin for massive, catastrophic error. Get in the corners by coating a paper towel or piece of waxed paper with butter/shortening. Don’t be shy. There’s plenty of grease in the cake, too, so a little more to help it shoot out of the pan when it’s ready really isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether you fit into your brand new J. Crew bikini this Summer.
- Run a knife around the perimeter of your cake to make sure the edges aren’t stuck.
- Put a cooling rack on top of the pan, and then put your hand on that as you flip it over. This way you won’t be setting yourself up for the cake falling out before you’ve turned the pan all the way over, breaking and crumbling to its death on your countertop.
Hopefully next time you bake a cake, you’ll think of this entry and fully enjoy the experience that comes with flipping that cake pan over, giving it a little tap, and then nervously grabbing the edges to lift it off, finding it nearly weightless under your hands as you reveal a perfect, glistening treasure.
What do you do after that? Well, frost it of course! Frosting a cake is another wicked satisfying thing. Or maybe you want to up the satisfaction even more and coat it with fondant…
Have a catastrophic cake story you want to share? Leave a comment!
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