Adventures in Baking (Part 2)

Preparing pans for baking

I have always had a problem with my cakes sticking so I obviously was not greasing my pans enough but again thanks to my friends Goggle and YouTube I found something that will help with that.

Mix 1 cup of shortening, 1 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of vegetable oil together.  It will make a mixture similar to shortening.  Using a pastry brush completely cover the inside of your pan with this and the cake literally slides out of the pan.

It makes almost 2 cups so it will last for quite awhile just store it in an air tight container.

I have used it on 3 cakes as well as muffin tins and it worked lovely !!

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Baking Strips

These little babies will help ensure you cake bakes evenly throughout and you will not get that domed top in the middle.  I actually had a set of these from a cake decorating class I took awhile back and totally forgot about them.  I pulled them out and used them on both cakes and didn't have to level the cakes at all as they were totally flat on the top.

You can try to make your own using old pieces of material but honestly I preferred these store bought ones.  You will need two to go around a 9x13 pans.

A must have even if you are using a store bought cake mix.

In the end I made some pretty great cakes for Hayden's party but more importantly learnt a ton of things that will help make things easier in the kitchen from now on.

Happy Baking !!