I made a cake for Carl's thesis defense. Actually, I tend to make cakes fairly regularly, and one of the problems I frequently have is that the cake sticks to the pan after it's baked, even if I butter and flour the pan. This was particularly frustrating with Carl's cake, because I wanted it to be perfect. So, there were two lessons here. The first is to butter the pan, and then cut a round (or whatever the shape of your pan is) piece of parchment paper for the bottom. The cake will just slide right out. If you forget that step, lesson two is that copious amounts of frosting can fix anything. Well, almost anything. If it comes out in crumbs there's probably no saving it. I also wanted to show you pictures of my pretty cake.
