Why Lining Is Worth the Faff

There is a particular sort of quiet disappointment that comes with a sponge that refuses to leave its tin. You have creamed, folded and waited, and now half the crust is welded to the base and the rest is in tatters on the cooling rack. A few minutes spent with baking parchment before the batter goes anywhere near the tin will spare you that entirely.

Lining does three things at once. It gives you a genuinely clean release, so a delicate whisked sponge or a sticky ginger cake keeps its shape and its neat sides. It protects the tin's non-stick coating from knives, scourers and baked-on sugar. And it cuts your washing up down to a quick rinse, because the tin itself barely sees the cake at all.

One important note: baking parchment is what you want, not greaseproof paper. Greaseproof is not silicone-coated, so it clings stubbornly to cakes and to itself. It has its uses for wrapping, but it will make a mess of lining.

What to Have to Hand

Keep a small kit together and lining becomes a two-minute job rather than a hunt through drawers.

• A roll of good-quality baking parchment, ideally 38cm wide so it covers a 23cm tin without a fight.
• Sharp scissors, kept for paper only.
• A pastry brush and a little softened butter, or a flavourless oil for lighter sponges.
• A pencil, if you like to draw round the tin, or nothing at all if you would rather crease and tear.
• Your tin, sitting upside down on the worktop for tracing.

Lining a Round Tin, Step by Step

Sit the tin on the parchment and draw round the base, then cut just inside the line. A circle cut exactly on the pencil mark will buckle as you press it in; a fraction smaller sits flat and snug. To save time, fold a square of parchment into quarters, fold again, and trim the point to the radius of the tin. Unfold and you have four perfect circles.

Brush the inside of the tin lightly with butter, then press in the base circle and smooth it down from the centre outwards. Grease the paper too if your batter is sticky, or leave it bare if you want the palest possible finish.

For deeper tins, fruit cakes and any bake that needs a long, slow spell in the oven, add a collar. Cut a strip of parchment about 5cm taller than the tin and long enough to wrap right round with a small overlap. Along one long edge, snip diagonal cuts about 2cm deep and 2cm apart. Those snips let the paper fold neatly around the curve where the side meets the base. Stand the collar in the tin, snipped edge down, and press it against the walls.

Square, Rectangular and Loaf Tins

Corners are where lining usually goes wrong, so the trick is to cut in rather than fold. Take a piece of parchment large enough to cover the base and rise up all four sides with a 3cm overhang. Lay it over the inverted tin and crease it firmly around the edges to mark the base square. Now cut from each corner of the paper straight in to the corner of the creased square. Slip the paper into the tin, and the four flaps will fold up the sides on their own, overlapping tidily at the corners.

Loaf tins are even simpler. Cut one strip the width of the tin plus twice its height, and the length of the tin plus twice its height, then trim the four corner squares away so the paper sits flat inside. The overhang makes a pair of handles, so you can lift a fragile bake straight onto the rack.

Loose-Bottoms, Springforms and Awkward Shapes

For a loose-bottomed tin, line the base first, then push the ring down over it and clamp. If your batter is thin, stand the tin on a baking sheet for stability as you fill it. Springform tins behave the same way: base circle, plus a collar if you are baking a cheesecake that will sit in the tin overnight.

Some tins should never be lined. Bundt tins, fancy moulds and tins with intricate fluting need a proper coating instead: brush in a paste of equal parts soft butter and plain flour, working it into every crevice with a pastry brush. Muffin and Yorkshire pudding tins are best left bare and blazing hot, with paper cases for the former.

Small Habits That Save Scrubbing

• Grease the tin, then the paper. Paper laid into a dry tin slides about while you pour.
• Cut side strips generously. A 3cm overhang costs nothing and gives you handles.
• Peel the paper from a sponge while it is still warm, once it has firmed up on the rack. It comes away cleanly and stops the crust going clammy.
• Leave the paper on a rich fruit cake until it is completely cold, then wrap the cake in fresh parchment and keep it in a tin.
• Cut a stack of circles at once and store them flat. Far cheaper than buying pre-cut liners, and always there when you need one.
• A second batch of the same sponge can often use the same papers, wiped and smoothed flat, as long as they are not scorched.

Do this once or twice and it becomes second nature, the way lining a roasting tin is. You will spend a couple of minutes at the start and save yourself twenty at the sink, and the cakes — neat, even and whole — will look like the work of someone who has done this many times before.