How to Line a Cake Pan

Updated August 2026 · Baking Resources

Grease the bare pan, lay a parchment circle cut to shape on the bottom, then grease and flour the parchment and the sides. That three-step sequence releases nearly every cake there is, and it takes about 90 seconds per pan.

The order matters. The first thin coat of grease is glue that holds the parchment flat so batter can't creep underneath. The second coat plus flour gives the batter a dry, non-stick film to climb on the sides, which is where cakes actually grip.

The one shortcut worth knowing: baking spray that already contains flour does the grease-and-flour steps in one pass. You still want parchment on the bottom.

Switching pan sizes and not sure what you're lining? Our free pan converter matches volumes between round, square and rectangular pans so you're lining the right one.

Updated August 2026

How to line a cake pan: the three steps in order

1. Grease the empty pan. A thin film, bottom and sides. Use a paper towel or your fingers, not a heavy brush. You're not coating it yet, you're tacking the parchment down.
2. Lay in parchment cut to the pan's shape. Press it flat into the greased bottom. It should stick and stay put.
3. Grease again over the parchment and the sides, then dust with flour. Add a tablespoon or two of flour, tilt and tap the pan to coat every surface, then invert it over the sink and knock out the excess.

That's it. The pan is ready.

Why not just parchment, no grease? Because parchment only covers the bottom. Cake batter rises by climbing the sides, and it grips bare metal hard. Greased and floured sides let the cake climb far enough to set and then release when it cools and contracts.

Why not just grease and flour, no parchment? You can, and for a sturdy pound cake it works. But the bottom is where a cake sits under its own weight for 30 minutes at 350°F, and it's where sugar caramelizes against metal. Parchment removes that variable completely.

For chocolate cakes, swap the flour for unsweetened cocoa powder. It does the same job without leaving white dust on a dark cake. Use it by volume, not weight, since cocoa is only 85 g per cup against flour's 125 g.

Lining by pan shape

Round pans: two ways to cut the circle

The trace method. Set the pan on parchment, run a pencil around the base, then cut just inside the line. Cutting inside matters, because a circle the exact outer diameter of the pan will buckle at the edges when you press it into a pan whose walls slope slightly inward.

The folded-triangle method, which is faster once you've done it twice and needs no pencil:

1. Tear off a square of parchment bigger than the pan.
2. Fold it in half, then in half again. You have a smaller square with the center point at one corner.
3. Fold that corner over diagonally, twice more, into a narrow spike. Keep the point tight.
4. Hold the point at the exact center of the pan's underside and let the spike lie across the base.
5. Cut straight across where the spike meets the pan's edge, then trim about 1/8 inch shorter.
6. Unfold. Perfect circle.

If your circle turns out slightly small, that's fine and even preferable. Slightly large buckles, and a buckle is a crease that prints into the bottom of your cake.

Loaf pans and 9x13: the parchment sling

A sling is the single most useful lining trick in baking, because it turns "how do I get this out?" into lifting it out with two hands.

For a loaf pan: cut a strip of parchment the width of the pan's base and long enough to run up both long sides with 2 inches of overhang on each. Grease the pan, press the strip in, then grease and flour the two exposed short ends.

For a 9x13: same idea, one strip 9 inches wide running the long way with overhang at both ends, or two strips crossed if you want a full lift on all four sides. Brownies, bar cookies and sheet cakes all come out clean in one piece this way, which means you can cut them on a board instead of hacking at them in the pan.

Clip the overhang to the pan rim with binder clips while you pour the batter, or the parchment will float. Remove the clips before it goes in the oven if they're plastic-coated.

If you're substituting one pan for another, our 9x13 pan substitutes guide covers which combinations hold the same volume, and remember that a shallower pan of the same area bakes faster. Check the timing with our baking time calculator.

Springform pans

Cut the parchment circle a full inch wider than the base. Lay it over the base plate, then close the ring around it so the excess parchment is trapped in the clamp. It sticks out around the outside, which looks untidy and gives you a leak-resistant seal at the seam.

Grease the sides but skip the flour. Cheesecakes and tortes, the things springforms are for, want to grip the sides slightly as they rise, and the ring comes off anyway.

Springforms leak. Wrap the outside bottom in two layers of heavy foil if there's any water bath involved or any thin batter going in.

Bundt pans: why they stick and what to do

A bundt pan has three to five times the surface contact of a round cake pan of the same volume, and every flute is a place where cake can lock in. There is no way to line it. Parchment cannot follow a curve in two directions at once, so anything you try to press in there will crease and print into the cake.

So the coating has to be perfect.

The method that works:

1. Use solid shortening or soft butter on a pastry brush, not spray oil. Push the bristles into every flute, every crease, and the center tube. You want a visible film everywhere, with no bare metal showing.
2. Dust with flour, about 3 tbsp for a 10-cup pan. Tilt and rotate slowly so the flour rides up the flutes.
3. Invert over the sink and tap firmly. Any loose flour that stays behind bakes into pale patches.
4. Check the pan in good light. Look for shiny bare spots, especially in the deepest part of each flute and around the center tube. Patch what you find.

Or use baking spray with flour in it, which is genuinely excellent for bundts because the aerosol reaches into detail a brush can't. Spray at an angle from several directions, then wipe out any pooling with a paper towel. Pooled spray fries into a sticky varnish.

Never use butter alone on a bundt. Butter is about 16% water and 2% milk solids, and those solids brown and glue the cake to the metal. Shortening is 100% fat and doesn't do that.

The bundt cooling window

This is the part that ruins more bundts than the greasing does.

Cool the cake in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then invert. Not longer.

Here's the mechanism. Straight out of the oven, the cake is still fragile and steam is trapped between the crumb and the pan. Give it 10 minutes and two things happen at once: the crumb firms up enough to support its own weight, and the cake contracts slightly as it cools, pulling away from the metal. That's the release window.

Wait 30 minutes and the escaping steam has condensed into liquid sugar syrup between the cake and the pan, and as it cools further that syrup sets into glue. Now the cake is welded in. This is why a bundt that would have slid out at 12 minutes will not come out at all at 40.

Set a timer. Ten to 15 minutes, then a firm tap on the counter, then invert onto a rack.

If it's already stuck: put the pan back in a warm oven, around 250°F, for 5 minutes to re-melt that syrup, then try again immediately. It works more often than you'd expect.

Grease options compared

Cake goop, worked out

Cake goop is a homemade pan release that outperforms most sprays and costs almost nothing. It's equal parts by volume of all-purpose flour, vegetable shortening and vegetable oil.

A batch of 3 cups:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour, 125 g spoon-and-leveled
• 1 cup vegetable shortening, about 190 g
• 1 cup neutral oil, about 218 g

Beat the three together with a hand mixer for two minutes until it's a smooth, pale, mayonnaise-thick paste with no lumps. Store it in a lidded jar. It keeps six months in the pantry and a year in the fridge.

To use it, brush a thin coat on with a pastry brush and stop there. No parchment needed, no flouring step, no dusty white residue on the finished cake. One 3-cup batch coats roughly 40 to 50 cake pans, which works out to a tiny fraction of what a can of spray costs.

If you're weighing rather than measuring, remember all-purpose flour runs 125 g per cup spoon-and-level and 145 g scoop-and-sweep, so use the lower number here and match the volumes.

When you should not grease the pan at all

Angel food cake and chiffon cake are the exceptions, and greasing the pan is the classic way to ruin both.

Both cakes are leavened almost entirely by whipped egg foam. They have little or no chemical leavening, and in angel food's case no fat at all. What lifts them is steam expanding inside a protein foam, and what holds them at that height is the batter physically gripping the pan wall and climbing it like a rope.

Grease the pan and the batter has nothing to hold onto. It rises, reaches its peak, and then slides straight back down as it cools into a dense, rubbery disc maybe half the height it should be.

So for angel food and chiffon:

• Bare, ungreased tube pan. No grease, no flour, no parchment, no spray, not even a wipe.
• A pan with a removable bottom, because you release these cakes with a knife, not by inverting them.
• Cool the cake upside down, hanging on the pan's feet or over the neck of a bottle, for at least 90 minutes. The structure is still soft while warm and gravity will compress it if you leave it upright.
• Release by running a thin knife or offset spatula around the sides and center tube, pressing against the metal rather than the cake.

Wash these pans by hand and never in a dishwasher with harsh detergent, and never scrub the interior with anything that polishes it. A slightly matte, microscopically rough surface is what the batter grips.

Sponge cakes and genoise sit in between. Most recipes want the bottom lined and the sides bare so the batter still gets some grip.

A worked example: lining two 8-inch rounds

Say you're baking a two-layer 8-inch birthday cake, and you have 15 minutes before the batter is ready.

1. Cut two parchment circles. Fold a sheet into the spike, hold the point at the center of an inverted pan, cut where the spike crosses the rim, trim 1/8 inch. Unfold, use the first circle as a template for the second.
2. Grease both pans thin. About 1 tsp of soft butter or shortening each, wiped around with a paper towel. Bottom and sides.
3. Press the circles in. They should stick to the greased bottom immediately and lie completely flat. If a circle buckles at the edge, trim it slightly smaller.
4. Second grease coat over the parchment and up the sides.
5. Flour both pans, about 1 tbsp each. Tilt, rotate, tap, then invert over the sink and knock the excess out. For a chocolate cake, use cocoa instead.
6. Bake, then cool 10 minutes in the pan. Run a thin knife around the edge, invert onto a rack, peel the parchment off while the cake is still slightly warm.

Peeling the parchment warm matters. Cold parchment sticks to the crumb and takes a layer with it.

Elapsed time for both pans: about three minutes. Cakes lost to sticking: zero.

Frequently asked questions

Do you grease the pan before or after putting parchment in?

Both. Grease the bare pan first so the parchment sticks flat and batter can't run underneath, then grease again over the parchment and the sides before flouring. Skipping the first coat leaves the parchment loose, and it slides around when you pour the batter in.

Can I use wax paper instead of parchment paper?

No. Wax paper is coated in paraffin, which melts at oven temperature, smokes, and fuses to the cake. Parchment is silicone-treated and rated to about 425°F. If you have neither, grease and flour the pan very thoroughly and accept a slightly higher risk of sticking.

How do I keep a bundt cake from sticking?

Brush solid shortening into every flute with a pastry brush until no bare metal shows, dust with 3 tbsp of flour, then invert and tap out the excess. Baking spray that contains flour works just as well and reaches detail more easily. Then cool the cake in the pan for exactly 10 to 15 minutes before inverting, because waiting longer lets the escaping syrup set into glue.

Should I grease an angel food cake pan?

Never. Angel food and chiffon batters rise by gripping the bare pan wall and climbing it, and a greased pan gives them nothing to hold, so the cake slides back down and bakes dense. Use a clean, ungreased tube pan with a removable bottom and cool the cake upside down for at least 90 minutes.

What is a parchment sling and when do I need one?

It's a strip of parchment that lines the bottom of a pan and hangs over two sides as handles, so you can lift the whole bake out in one piece. Use it for brownies, bar cookies, loaf cakes and 9x13 sheet cakes, anything you'd otherwise have to cut and dig out of the pan. Clip the overhang to the rim so it doesn't float when the batter goes in.

Is baking spray with flour as good as greasing and flouring by hand?

For detailed pans like bundts, it's often better, because the aerosol reaches into flutes a brush can miss. For flat-bottomed round and square pans, hand greasing plus parchment is more reliable. Either way, wipe out any pooled spray, since pooled propellant and oil bake into a sticky brown varnish.

How long should a cake cool in the pan before I turn it out?

Ten to 15 minutes for most cakes, including bundts. That's long enough for the crumb to firm up and contract away from the metal, and short enough that condensed sugar syrup hasn't set into glue. Loaf cakes and dense pound cakes can take 20, but leaving anything to cool completely in its pan makes release harder, not easier.

My cake is stuck in the pan right now, what do I do?

Put the pan back into a 250°F oven for 5 minutes to soften the sugar bonding the cake to the metal, then run a thin flexible knife around the sides and try again immediately. If it's still stuck, set the pan bottom in an inch of hot water for 30 seconds, dry it, and invert with a sharp downward motion. If a piece stays behind, glue it back with frosting; nobody will ever know.

Related guides: Pan converter | 9x13 pan substitutes | Baking time calculator | Why did my cake sink? | How to frost a cake