Ever have trouble getting cakes, brownies, and bar cookies out of those square cake pans without having it crumble into a horrid mess? Here's a quick tip we picked up from the folks over at Cook's Illustrated...
Easy Lifting: Using Aluminum Foil Liners in Cake Pans
Tear off two sheets of aluminum foil long enough to line the sides and bottom of the pan with a little extra to hang over the lip. Fold each sheet so that they're the same width as the bottom of the pan.
Lay one sheet on the bottom of the pan and cross it in the opposite direction with the second sheet. Spray the pan with non-stick cooking spray and fill with the batter as normal.
Once your cake or brownies have baked and cooled, you can lift them from the pan by the foil flaps, peel it back, and cut into squares without any fuss.
This method works best when baking in square pans. If you bake in a rectangular pan, it helps to have a second pair of hands to support the bottom as you transfer it to the cutting board.
Related: Measuring: Dip and Sweep
(Image: Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)
Comments (5)
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I worked with a caterer that used this trick all the time - it also made clean up really easy!
view Marie's profile
I love this, I've been doing it for a few months thanks to CI. It's so easy to pick up brownies, cut them, and put them back in the pan. Definitely worth the extra couple minutes it takes to line the pan.
And Marie is right, clean-up is super easy. Great tip.
view bobcatsteph3's profile
I don't get it - I think greasing a pan would be a lot faster. But I've also never found cleaning brownies or cake crumbs out of a pan to be an arduous task.
view alexis's profile
*Alexis, it's not the easy cleaning (though that's a bonus) so much as the cutting and removing of brownies that's a pain. It's hard (for me at least) to maneuver a knife at an angle to cut through the brownies properly without the sides of the pan getting in the way.
When you have the ability to take them out of the pan you don't have to worry about pan sides and cutting is so much easier.
view bobcatsteph3's profile
This is a great tip. I'm not too fussy about how the edges look, though, and for me, just pushing a single sheet of foil down and against the inside edges and corners works well enough. The CI's classic brownie recipe is the best I've ever tried, and tonight, I tried their fudgy brownie to give to a friend. I expect a full report from her later this week!
view OneWallKitchen's profile