My Favorite Method for Preventing a Cake from Sticking to the Pan Is Pure Magic (It’s Not Cooking Spray)

As a seasoned recipe developer and former caterer, I have made a lot of cakes (like a lot). An annoyingly ubiquitous issue with baking cakes, one that I’ve had to deal with countless times and plagues even the best of recipes, is getting the finished cake to release cleanly from the pan. And no cake pan is more notorious for being problematic in this regard than the bundt pan. 

A Bundt cake is a thing of beauty. A delicious ring of cake with peaks and valleys, and sometimes even swirls. However, everything that makes it a showstopper also makes it a nightmare. Those nooks and crannies make for the perfect places for cake batter to fuse to the metal pan. If you haven’t greased every single square inch of the pan to within an inch of its life —  and often even if you have — you’ll be left trying to carefully pry the cake from the sides without damaging its delicate shape, and likely failing miserably. Trust me, I’ve been there. And I likely would have been there again if not for learning about the sneakily simple solution to this seemingly unavoidable problem: cake goop. 

Cake goop is a homemade pan release paste made from equal parts all-purpose flour, vegetable oil, and shortening. Simply use a pastry brush to paint the interior of the baking pan (it works for any baking pan, not just stubborn Bundt pans) with an even layer of goop and proceed with the recipe. 

To make cake goop, beat together equal parts (by volume) all-purpose flour, vegetable oil, and shortening until combined. The mixture can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

There are no shortage of products and techniques that may or may not save you from the grim fate of ruining a perfectly good cake by forcibly prying it out of a pan where it has become stuck, but cake goop is the only one that has ever worked consistently for me. It’s cheap, easy to make, and easy to use. To top it all, unlike other potential solutions out there, it doesn’t leave any greasy residue on the cake or discolor its surface. You can’t taste it in the finished cake, which will slip right out of even the oldest, banged-up baking pan in your kitchen with no resistance.