If you use butter, the key is to use it sparingly, preferably along with a nonstick pan. Drop a pat of butter in your pan and using a paper towel or your hands, rub it all over the surface of the pan before filling in your baking mix.
You can use butter or shortening for this method. If you're using butter, you can just run it around the pan, bottom and sides, using the stick. If you're using shortening or a tub of butter, I like to use a paper towel to wipe it all over the pan.
Use your fingers to coat the inside of the pan with softened butter and then, instead of adding flour, add a tablespoon or two of sugar to the pan. Shake and turn the pan until the sugar coats the butter and then pour out any excess.
The verdict: Use butter if you want to. If you have extreme concerns about your cake sticking, use shortening (which is pure fat with no water), cooking spray, or baking spray. Coconut oil or bacon fat will also work, as will clarified butter which has the milk solids removed.
To pan-fry with butter, preheat your pan over medium heat and add butter. When it is melted, add your ingredients.
Greasing the bottom of a baking pan makes cakes easier to remove. Many recipes also call for flouring the pan after it is greased, typically when the recipe is particularly high in fat. The whole idea is to form a barrier, to keep the batter from clinging to the pan.
Forgetting to grease or flour a cake pan can put you on a fast track to dessert disaster. Kimball has a simple fix -- fill a larger pan with hot water and set your cake pan inside. Let it sit for three minutes, then remove the cake from the pan -- it should come out easily!
Butter and lard are great cooking spray alternatives. They're soft enough to spread into loaf pans and muffin tins with your fingers. You don't have to get your hands messy to use these products, either. Use a piece of parchment paper or paper towel to help grease.
Grease the tin's base and sides with a little butter on greaseproof paper. Make sure it is a very thin layer. Take the long piece of greaseproof paper and angle it into the cake tin, pushing it down to the base edge.
If your pan is too hot—and this is true specifically if you're frying with butter—the milk solids in your butter will burn, and fast. A little brown butter is a good thing, but too hot and the solids will start to blacken and then you'll be in trouble.
Tear a square of parchment paper (or a piece of paper towel in a pinch). Put a generous dollop of grease on one side and get a grip on the opposite side, keeping your hand clean. Smear grease over every inch of the inside of the pan: the bottom, sides and corners. Be generous!
Outside of baking, salted butter is a great all-purpose choice - even better than olive oil. You can grease a pan, spread it on bread, put a pat in your pasta, or melt a little on your vegetables. It does double duty for recipes that need just that little bit extra of fat and flavor.
Every young cook is told to let their pan heat up before adding any cooking fat to it, but the opposite is true when using nonstick. Instead, you should add oil or butter to the pan as soon as it's exposed to heat because cooking fat actually amplifies the coating's effect when added to the pan before the food.
3) Make your own pan grease (MY PREFERRED WAY)
All you need are equal amounts of 3 simple ingredients: vegetable oil, all-purpose flour, and shortening.
Pan prep methods vary with the type of cake and the recipe, and those instructions should be heeded to ensure a proper rise and clean release. An angel food cake, for example, bakes in an ungreased pan. Other recipes call for greasing only the bottom of the pan and to omit the flour.
When a cake bakes in a non-greased pan, it will adhere to the glass or metal instead of having a thin layer of fat or oil working as a layer of defense. So, in your attempt to remove the cake from the pan the cake will struggle to come out, which will often result in the crumb tearing or falling to pieces.
If you are baking a cake, always grease and flour the pan before adding the batter if you want the cake to unmold cleanly and easily. This is extra important if you're using a fancy bundt pan or making a tall, multi-layered cake.
Batters made with egg whites need help to rise to its fullest height, and greasing the cake pan will not help. Because the sides are not slick with butter or oil, this allows the batter to cling to the sides as it bakes and “climb up”.
You can use anything from a canola oil or olive oil spray to coconut oil or butter. Olive oil can be used in a pinch, but is a little harder to get to stick to the sides of the pan if you go too heavy handed. My personal choice is an olive oil spray, so it still sticks all around the pan and is easy to use.
It may sound like overkill, but the most effective way to ensure that a cake releases cleanly from a baking pan is to grease the pan, line it with parchment paper, and then grease and flour the parchment and pan sides.
When we apply heat to a solid substance it starts to melt. So the butter starts to melt after heating it. This is due to the process of melting.
Wait for butter to stop foaming before sautéing.
When foaming subsides, it's an easy visual cue that the melted butter is hot enough for cooking.
Mix, using hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed 1-2 minutes, or until butter mixture is pale yellow, light and fluffy. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl once or twice while mixing.