How to Line a Round Cake Pan with Parchment Paper

Learn the easy way to line a round cake pan with parchment paper and remove even the softest, stickiest cakes with ease! This trick is a lifesaver!

how to line a round cake pan with parchment paper: parchment paper peeled halfway off of the bottom of a round chocolate cake

My family has a cake that almost everyone chooses for their birthday each time: my Family Favorite Homemade Chocolate Cake (recipe coming soon). We have this cake 2-3 times in December. What can I say? It’s delicious!

The only problem is it can be a real pain to get it out of the cake pan. It used to take a lot of finessing. But after I learned how to line a round cake pan with parchment paper, I’ve never had a problem!

If you have a cake like this, you’ve got to try using Parchment Paper in the bottom! It makes cake removal a dream!

Get a Piece of Parchment Paper

square large piece of parchment paper the size of a round cake pan

Start with a piece of parchment paper about the same length as the diameter of your cake pan.

Fold the Parchment Paper

how to line a round cake pan with parchment paper: steps for folding parchment paper to fit a round cake pan

1: Fold the piece of parchment paper in half (top to bottom) and then in half again (side to side) to form a smaller square.

2. Fold this square in half diagonally to form a triangle. Be sure that the center of the paper is at the bottom point of the new triangle.

3. Fold the triangle in half again to get a very skinny triangle.

4. Position it so that the center of the parchment paper is at the center of your round pan.

Cut the Parchment Paper

how to line a round cake pan with parchment paper: cut the edge of the parchment paper off at the side of the cake pan. Then open the parchment paper in the bottom of the pan to see how it fits

5. Cut the outer edge of the parchment paper off at about the edge of the cake pan.

6. Open the parchment and see how it fits in the pan. If it’s a bit too big, fold it back up and cut off a little bit more. You can see in my picture that I had to cut off another little bit.

Grease Everything!

I know what you may be thinking. Isn’t the point of the parchment paper so that I don’t have to grease the cake pan?

Not quite. The point is to make your life easy by having this cake jump right out of the pan after you bake it. With these steps, you’ll have no problems!

how to line a round cake pan with parchment paper: parchment paper in a greased pan on the left and a pan with greased parchment paper on the right.

7. Grease the cake pan with butter. Lay the parchment paper over the top. This layer of butter will help the paper stay in place.

8. Grease the top of the parchment paper with Magic Cake Release. I strongly recommend this easy-to-make, homemade baking essential! If you don’t have that, you can simply grease and flour the parchment.

Bake and Remove Cake

how to line a round cake pan with parchment paper: 4 portions to picture: baked cake in cake pan. Inverted cake topped with parchment paper. Parchment paper half removed. Cake right-side up on a serving dish.

9: Pour cake batter into cake pan as usual. Bake and cool. Lightly bounce cake to be sure the bottom has released from the cake pan. For more information on how to easily perform the “bounce”, click here.

10: Flip cake upside down onto a large plate.

11: Remove parchment paper. This step should be super-simple thanks to that extra layer of Magic Cake Release!

12. Flip cake right-side-up onto your serving plate.

Now that you’ve learned how to line a round cake pan with parchment paper, get ready to bake a cake the easy way! Let me know how this works for you!

From Scratch to Scrumptious