If the recipe for a cake calls for a pan of a certain size and I don’t have it, would it be better to use one slightly bigger or one slightly smaller? (It’s a Tres Leches Cake.)
Baking spray seems impossible to find here (Korea). It is okay if I just put vegetable oil in a spray bottle? Do I have to sprinkle the pan with flour as well, after spraying it with oil? (I smeared margarine over the pan as a substitute but the cake still stuck a little.)
Thanks!
I can’t answer about the cake pan, but I’ll take a shot at this.
No, putting vegetable oil in a spray bottle probably won’t work. You are unlikely to get the same coverage as you do with the baking spray bottles which, to the best of my knowledge, are all aerosols.
Prior to baking sprays, what we cooks did was oil the pan, then flour it to prevent sticking. Or at least, were really careful to oil the pan well to get full coverage and prevent sticking.
2.The BEST way to prevent a cake from sticking is to
a. grease the whole pan with butter (sigh, or margarine or crisco, but transfats are evil!)
b.line the pan with baking parchment cut to fit the bottom of the pan.
c. grease over the parchment
d.flour the pan.
If you can’t find baking parchment, just grease and flour the pan
I tried to be thorough with the margarine, but I guess I’ll have to try harder next time. And use some flour as well. What kind of uncivilized country doesn’t have baking spray, I ask you.
I used a larger pan today and yes, the cake was a bit flat. I like the idea about muffins - I’ll have to do that next time. Thanks!
Butter is better
If you don’t have parchment, you can use wax paper (waxed paper?), which I’ve never greased separately. Very easy to cut – put the pan down on the wax paper, then run a knife around the outside of the pan. You do still need to grease/flour the sides of the pan though. Also not good for a cake you’d leave in the pan.
Yum, melted wax in my food!!
Problem with waxed paper is that the wax melts at 120-150 F (50-60C), which is way lower than baked goods bake at. So, yes, you end up with melted wax in your food. The good news is that they use food grade paraffin for waxed paper, so you won’t kill anyone, but it may, for delicately flavored cakes, affect the mouth feel somewhat. Probably not enough for most people to recognize, though.
Parchment paper is good up to about 450, because it uses silicone, not wax.
You can use either a larger or a smaller pan, if you don’t have the exact size called for in the recipe. I’ve used 9" cake pans instead of 8", and you just have to keep a close eye on the doneness. It’ll take less time to cook through. I’ve also done the opposite - used 8" instead of 9" - and cooked it longer (for one recipe) and made cupcakes (for another recipe). The other thing to keep in mind is that this may affect the amount of frosting you need to frost the cake - if the frosting recipe only makes just baaaarely enough to cover, you’ll need to be careful.
If you’re looking to buy cake pans, and you don’t know which to buy… well, that’s trickier. Do you have other cake recipes you’ve bookmarked? If so, look through them to see what sizes they call for, and get the one that appears most. But honestly, I wouldn’t worry much about it. I bake a lot and I have one set of 8" cake pans, and it works just fine.
Use a paper towel to get the butter in all the corners and in an even layer. Make sure to tap out the excess flour so you don’t get floury bits. I do this over the trash can so it doesn’t make a mess.
The cake decorating people at Wilton recommend what they call Cake Release. It is equal parts by volume vegetable oil, shortening, and flour. Mix it up till smooth and brush/wipe it onto the pan. I make a batch with one cup of each and leave it in the fridge forever. It is a lot better than just wiping with a solid fat, which I used to do.
I don’t know about using muffin tins for tres leches cake. How will you get the soaked cake out of them? It’s a really soggy cake. I think that I would try using the smaller cake pan, *maybe *at a *slightly *lower temperature, and check it about 10 minutes before the recipe calls for.
Here is a handy-dandy chart of pan sizes and volumes, if you have to use something other than the recipe calls for.
Thanks everyone. 
Parchment paper and shortening are hard to find around here. I baked the tres leches cake in a slightly larger pan and it turned okay.