How to Grease a Cake Pan
on May 09, 2020, Updated May 23, 2020
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If you’ve ever made a cake or a batch of muffins that sticks to the pan when you try to take them out, we are going to show you exactly how to grease a cake pan to keep this from ever happening to you again.
This is one of our favorite kitchen tips! No more cakes that stick. Be gone, we say!
Why this is important
Prepping a cake pan is one of the simplest and most effective things you can do in the kitchen to help ensure your cake or muffins won’t stick to the pan. If I had a cupcake for every time I inverted a cake onto a cooling rack only to have a big chunk of it stick to the bottom or side of the pan, I’d be even heavier than what I am today. (I don’t believe in wasting anything!)
The solution to keeping this from happening is super simple. Read on and you’ll see what I mean. Also, if you’re looking for more cooking tips, check out my top 10 tips for being a better cook!
Learn how to grease and flour a pan so you can get results as we did with our Chocolate & Coffee Whiskey Cake. Instead of flour, we use cocoa to dust the pan for this cake recipe. How fun is that?![/caption]
The different ways to do it
There are several different ways to grease baking pans, depending on what you have on hand and what you are baking.
Here’s what you need:
- Some flour
- Some butter (or shortening)
- A cake or muffin pan
- Parchment paper
- A pen or pencil and scissors
The different baking pans to grease and flour
There are as many different types of cake pans as there are cake recipes that go in them. Craftsy does a great job of describing the only 10 pans that any baker needs to own. How many of these do you have? We get a tiny commission from any of the links below if you want to grab one on Amazon.
- Bundt Pans
- 9″ Round Cake Pans
- Loaf Pans
- Muffin Pans
- Tube Pans
- Sheet Pans
- Cupcake Pans
- Rectangle Cake Pans
We made our Lemon Loaf Cake in different sizes of loaf pans, each greased and floured to help them turn out perfectly.
How to do it
1. Start by using a small amount of room temperature butter or shortening.
- Using your fingertips, spread a thin layer of the butter throughout the bottom and sides of the pan.
- Be sure to cover all inside surfaces of the cake or muffin pan. If you prefer, use a baking spray such as Pam. I prefer butter to use for greasing a pan because of the extra flavor, and I’m a (dairy) farm boy at heart.
2. Put a tablespoon of flour into the cake pan and give it a tap-tap-tap.
- The flour will stick to the greased surface and help create a barrier between the wet batter and the sides and bottom of the cake pan.
- When the cake pan is evenly coated, take it over to your sink and gently bang the excess flour out of the pan.
3. When using round cake pans, you’re going to want to add a layer of parchment paper to the bottom of them.
- To do this, just trace out a pattern of the pan’s bottom on a sheet of parchment paper.
- Then, use your kitchen scissors to cut it out. You can see our kids doing it when they baked a beautiful marble cake for one of their brother’s 15th birthday.
- Some will advise you to grease and flour the parchment paper too.
This bundt cake pan is all prepped and ready for the batter for our lemon soda cake.
I hope that you find this guide on how to grease a cake pan helpful.
Sometimes baking can seem overwhelming, and many of you probably have never even attempted to bake a cake from scratch. That’s all understandable because there are a lot of different steps involved. Take them one at a time.
Grab yourself some cake flour and other ingredients and make yourself a cake!
Are you trying to decide on a good cake recipe? Here are some of our favorites!
- Lemon Soda Pound Cake
- Fun spring cake, filled with color, flavor, and great curb appeal.
- Chocolate & Coffee Whiskey Cake
- A New York Times recipe that combines the rich flavors of three classic flavors.
- Boston Cream Cake
- Easy shortcut using a box or store-bought pound cake for a classic Boston Cream Pie knock-off.
- Coconut Carrot Cake
- Classic carrot cake with a toasted coconut on the inside and sprinkled on the outside.
Common questions
What can I use instead of flour?
If you are looking for a flour substitution for greasing a cake pan, you have a couple of options:
- Use a nonstick cooking spray such as Pam. (We love the nonstick sprays with flour in them!) This no grease technique is neat and tidy.
- Use a little bit of sugar, instead of flour, for dusting sweet bread pans. Sugar gives the outside a sweet caramelized crunch and helps prevent the bread from sticking to the pan. This works great for our banana bread recipe.
Do I need to grease the pan for brownies and cookies?
Normally, you don’t have to grease the pan for cookies and brownies. Cookies usually have enough butter or other fat in them to make them nonstick goodies.
Pro Cooking Tip
- When making baking cookies and brownies, line your baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil. If you have some nonstick spray, it’s ok to give a quick coat over the pan lining. This makes clean up super fast and gives you more time to eat those cookies! Game. Changer!
We hope you find this baking tip useful and wish you happy baking!
Become a better baker and learn the difference between baking soda and baking powder. We’ve got many other expert kitchen tips, like how to rinse quinoa, what plates are safe to use in an air fryer, and many more!
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How to Grease a Cake Pan
Equipment
- Cake or bread pan
Instructions
- Use fingertips to spread a thin layer throughout inner surface of a cake pan, making sure to cover both the sides and bottom of the pan.
- Place flour in the the pan and tap it around to cover all of the inner surface of the pan. Give the pan a sharp tap over your kitchen sink to discard the excess flour.
- Line the bottom of the cake pan with parchment paper as described above.
Video
Notes
- Substitute sugar for flour for greasing a bread pan for sweet bread.
Great tip and one I know my readers would greatly appreciate! No one wants a stuck cake! Great job!
I used to struggle big time with cakes sticking to my pan, especially with bundt cakes. Now, I grease it with butter and dust it with flour and I haven’t had an issue since. This recipe works. I just wish I wasn’t so messy with the flour, haha!
It is so important to properly grease a pan before baking! This is a great tutorial because if it is not done correctly,your baked items can be ruined! You have covered it all!
This is such a great guide! I’m not a great baker so guides like this are perfect for me. Thank you for sharing this x
You did such a meticulous job greasing and flouring the bundt pan you photographed! I’m so lazy – I just use some cooking spray and very rarely bother to flour. I guess I’ve just been lucky (or my bundt pans are all great great at being non-stick!).
Thanks for such lovely information and tips. This really helps to make life simple and easy too. Thank you very much.
This is so interesting, I never thought to add parchment paper to a bundt pan too, but it makes perfect sense. Thanks for the great idea 🙂
These are great tips! Thank you for sharing! It’s always so heartbreaking when the cake sticks to the pan and you end up with a mess of cake.
Cleaning stuck cake off a pan is the worst but lots of great tips here. Thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you for these tips on how to grease a cake pan. I love the addition of parchment paper on the bottom of the pan too!
Thanks for leaving the comments, Anne; we’re happy you like this kitchen tip!