One of the most important things you must practise when blistering is grease the pan. If you don't know how to grease a pan your broiled goods will stick! There are several easy ways you can prepare your pan for cakes, brownies and all baked goods, then just choose the method that's easiest for you!

Pin It Now TO Save FOR LATER

cake pans with flour and spray and Crisco

My mom taught me how to grease a cake pan when I was young; it'southward actually one of my very first baking memories. She taught me about using a paper towel to butter the pan and so how to add flour and pat information technology around the bottom and sides so the cake wouldn't stick. To this day, that lesson was and even so is one of the most important and all-time things I learned about baking.

If you don't know how to grease a pan it's super important to learn, otherwise your cakes will stick and non release. And information technology's not but for cakes! Brownies, bars and cookies too need some sort of nonstick surface to bake on otherwise yous'll have a mess to clean upwards.

There are several means to grease your pans for baking:

  • With butter/shortening and flour
  • With butter and sugar
  • Using nonstick cooking spray
  • Using foil or parchment

Let's talk most each method, what they're proficient for, and why they work.

can of crisco

The traditional style to grease a pan is with shortening or butter and flour.

This is the manner our moms and grandmas did it, before PAM invented their phenomenon spray. It's the fashion I learned and while it'southward not the easiest way, it's the foolproof one. Plus, if you're blistering, you probably take everything you already need on-hand to grease your pans.

Yous can use butter or shortening for this method.

  1. If you're using butter, you can just run information technology around the pan, bottom and sides, using the stick.
  2. If you're using shortening or a tub of butter, I like to employ a paper towel to wipe it all over the pan.
  3. Add a tablespoon or ii of all-purpose flour into your pan. Rotate and tap the pan until there is flour roofing every greased surface. Discard remaining flour.

That'south it! If you always wondered how to keep a block from sticking to the pan, that'south the way to do it.

PRO TIP: if y'all're making a layer cake, I often cut a piece of parchment to fit the lesser of the pan then I know information technology'll come up out for SURE.

Merely cut a circular or foursquare of parchment and put it in the pan later you've greased information technology, simply before the flour. Grease the parchment, then flour it, and continue as normal. Once the cake is done it'll pop right out!

You demand to grease your pans even if they're nonstick if you want to be sure your cake volition come up out of the pan.

My mom also taught me a absurd (and delicious) way to grease pans for quick bread (like banana bread): she greases the pan with butter or shortening and then uses sugar instead of flour. Sugaring the pan gives a nice crisis to the outside of the quick bread!

Note: this doesn't work with cooking spray, and I wouldn't do it for a cake!

What happens if you lot forgot to flour a cake pan?

It happens! I know I've done information technology. Now, I'm going to exist honest: it might non come out correct. I'm going to give you some things to try to loosen it, but there is a chance it'll exist stuck.

If you forgot to grease your pan, try these methods to release your cake:

  1. Run a knife effectually the edge of the cake, gently pulling up in a few places. You tin can also try to run an offset spatula nether the cake also.
  2. Invert the pan on a cooking rack or cut board. Tap the bottom a few times.
  3. Leave it to sit upside down in the hopes it'll popular out (if it didn't in pace #2).
  4. If those didn't work, then endeavor shaking the cake pan. Chances are it'll come out…or at least function of it will.

Broken cake? Make cake pops!

can of cooking spray

Dorsum in the 90s or and so, PAM invented nonstick cooking spray. That invention revolutionized how we melt today: I rarely employ oil when I cook dinner, instead I utilize nonstick spray.

Then they came out with nonstick baking spray, which is similar the regular spray but information technology has flour in it. GENIUS!

How to grease a pan without flour: apply cooking spray!

  1. Spray it with spray.
  2. …that's it.

Haha, right? Cooking spray is SO like shooting fish in a barrel!

Whenever I bake a cake, if I don't grease and flour my pans, I use the nonstick spray with flour in it (and I endeavour to say that in my recipes). This particularly works when y'all're greasing a bundt pan considering it'south not flat.

I as well apply cooking spray for pancakes and skillet recipes!

What can yous use to grease a pane for brownies or bars:

Commonly, when yous make brownies or blondies, you don't necessarily need them to pop completely out of the pan. Most people, I remember, merely piece and swallow them from the pan, so using nonstick cooking spray is easy and fast.

Yet, if y'all desire to lift an unabridged recipe of brownies out of the pan to piece them easily and brandish them – with clean cuts and no mess – then I propose lining your pan with foil or parchment paper.

Line the pan so spray it with nonstick cooking spray and you lot'll have nonstick brownies, easy peasy.

cake pans with flour and spray and Crisco

Can y'all use vegetable oil to grease a pan? Can you grease a pan with olive oil or coconut oil?

Yeah, I've used all of those for greasing pans before. I wouldn't utilise oil and flour but for sure you can employ oil for brownies, bars and cookies. I've also used oil on pans for potatoes and vegetables as well.

What about blistering cookies?

When it comes to cookies, most older recipes telephone call for a greased cookie canvass. Newer recipes, like mine, say to utilize parchment or a silicone blistering mat.

I find that parchment paper or silicone baking mats cook cookies so much better than greasing the pans. Often cookies don't need much more than fatty in them, simply they just need something they won't stick to.

Parchment newspaper can be found at the regular grocery store virtually the foil and baggies. If you lot want a reusable option, try Silpat Baking Mats, which are my favorite way to broil cookies.

Learning how to grease a pan is such an important part of learning to bake! With these tips your cakes and other baked goods recipes will plow out – literally – every time.

Final Updated on March 6, 2021

All text and images © DOROTHY KERN for Crazy for Crust. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you desire to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words, or link dorsum to this mail for the recipe. Disclaimer: Diet information shown is not guaranteed to exist authentic.

Join for FREE to start saving your favorite recipes

Create an account hands salvage your favorite content, so you never forget a recipe again.

sample post sample post sample post

This post may incorporate affiliate links. For more information, read my disclosure policy.

Published on: September 23, 2019