How do you treat bread and cake pans for easy removal?

The Late Night Gourmet

The Late Night Gourmet

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For an area of cooking that's so much about precision, this one aspect has a wide range of techniques, many of which really knowledgeable people (not me) swear by:
  • parchment paper
  • cooking spray
  • oil
  • lard or butter
  • lard, oil, or butter + flour
I recently made my wife's mom's phenomenal zucchini bread recipe, which included the instruction to grease and flour the pan. This worked out better than I've ever seen. I have heard about this method, but I've never used it because I didn't think it was necessary: I've usually been able to get the bread out of the pan with something as simple as cooking spray. That is, I've always been able to do so without issue except when I've used this:

Sur_La_Table-Loaf-Pan.jpg


No matter what I did, there were bits of dough that got caught in the crevices. But, here's how it turned out:

IMG_1095.JPG


Not bad! So...what methods do the bakers out there like to use? And what, specifically, would you do for a very challenging pan like this one?
 
When I make cakes, I usually use loose-bottomed tins and butter+flour them. For cakes like gingerbread, which have a high butter and sugar content, I line the tin with baking parchment or greaseproof paper. Plastic "tins" are always lined with parchment or greaseproof for any type of cake. I don't used bread pans very often, but I would tend to butter+flour them, even the so-called non-stick ones as they are not infallible. I bake my bread on flat trays, sometimes just buttered, sometimes just floured, and other times butter+flour, and sometimes parchment but the results seem to vary each time. For a tin like yours, I would probably use butter or oil.
 
I would use the baking spray with flour in it and lightly spray it from 2 or 3 different directions. Alternatively, a relatively soft brush with melted butter or oil and flour (again lightly and from different directions).
 
medtran49 said:
I would use the baking spray with flour in it and lightly spray it from 2 or 3 different directions. Alternatively, a relatively soft brush with melted butter or oil and flour (again lightly and from different directions).
Click to expand...
That's what I ended up doing. I got the butter to coat a standard pan, and ran into a few...issues when I tried to get them through the various contours of the above pan. So, I used canola oil cooking spray, and then dusted with flour. But, I like the idea of using oil (or melted butter) with a brush.
 
I have a variety of methods and it depends on experience with what in baking or cooking at the time.
  • I was taught the grease and flour technique many moons ago and it works but it can also leave an unpleasant oily crust over what you bake in my experience, so it's a use with care, not too much oil or marg and very little flour tapping off as much excess as possible.
  • I usually only oil with a bland oil (or one that has been used in the cake/bread) nowadays
  • but a few of my recipes are special, like my Christmas cake recipe where I actual oil then double line with greaseproof paper. The inner most greaseproof paper stays on the cake until Christmas Day so it acts like an air tight seal. Here I'll use a nut based oil because I've a lot of nuts in the cake anyway so it won't affect the flavour and often improved it. Hazelnut oil is my most commonly used one here
  • I also with biscuits (cookies) just use greaseproof paper (baking parchment) as well which is nice and easy but wasteful as far as I'm concerned. I can't reuse it and you can't recycle it... .
  • Melted marg applied with a brush is another method used with some cakes, usually where I really need the flavour to not change at all.
 
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I use a silicone liner for baking sheets and cut to size thin silicone sheets for normal cake tins.

I don't really use fancy tins like the one in the picture at the top, the closest I have is one of these:
121650.jpg

When I use the ring part I use the grease and flour method (or if its a chocolate cake, grease and cocoa powder).
 
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The Late Night Gourmet said:
For an area of cooking that's so much about precision, this one aspect has a wide range of techniques, many of which really knowledgeable people (not me) swear by:
  • parchment paper
  • cooking spray
  • oil
  • lard or butter
  • lard, oil, or butter + flour
I recently made my wife's mom's phenomenal zucchini bread recipe, which included the instruction to grease and flour the pan. This worked out better than I've ever seen. I have heard about this method, but I've never used it because I didn't think it was necessary: I've usually been able to get the bread out of the pan with something as simple as cooking spray. That is, I've always been able to do so without issue except when I've used this:

Sur_La_Table-Loaf-Pan.jpg


No matter what I did, there were bits of dough that got caught in the crevices. But, here's how it turned out:

View attachment 12781

Not bad! So...what methods do the bakers out there like to use? And what, specifically, would you do for a very challenging pan like this one?
Click to expand...


That pan certainly looks like a challenge! I think I would use a brush or a piece of kitchen paper to rub whatever grease into the crevices. I would probably shake a really light coating of flour around it, shaking any excess out.

I have got used to using parchment paper in all my baking, though I do have a couple of those rubbery flexible tins that don't need it. I also have a piece of reusable non stick liner but it's not quite big enough for my flat tray.
 
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