Help- my cake is stuck

[thecathaszerobrains]

In the loaf tin I baked it in. The expensive, always non stick one that is. I've tried a knife around the side and it still isn't coming out.

I need the cake for a school coffee morning tomorrow and would ideally like it whole and in one piece. Making another one isn't an option as I don't have any more ingredients and I don't have the time to go to the shop tonight. Neither do I want to mangle it and make something from the mangled remains either.

Virtual slices of lemon iced cake for anyone who can get my cake out of the tin.

Cut it round the edges, turn it upside down and cover the cut bits with glacé icing. Job's a good'un.

I would drizzle the top in situ, slice it tomorrow. Take it in as is, it isn't a bake off heat, no one is going to send you home. It might be tricky to get the 1st piece out, someone will have to have crumbs, tinkly laugh.
Don't trust that tin again, btw. Use those greaseproof paper tin liners from now on!

Try turning it upside down over something & see if gravity pulls it out?
Or, do you have anything like cheese wire that you can slip down the sides & underneath & along?

Have you added any lemon glaze or anything? If so, gently warm the base of the tin (eg in a tray of warm water) to melt the sugar down again.

Bang it?

When you go around the edge press it in a bit like your squishing it (seriously hard to describe)

Spatula it gently out by easing spatula into each side. Wow. Spatula is an interesting and strange word.

NB I have no baking knowledge to speak of, but obviously know what a spatula is. Will take virtual crumbs.

So presumably the issue is that the base is stuck as well as the sides?

Could you poke some sort of thread/wire down the end of the cake and then slide it along so it cuts the very bottom of the cake off? I imagine ideally you'd use wire so you could make a u shaped cheese wire almost to slice it out?

You could also try allowing gravity to do it's work by physically holding the cake aloft over your hand just a couple of inches below the cake but obviously there's no guarantee it won't be a bit wonky.

Have you got a really flexible fish slice or pallet knife? Try and get underneath the cake a bit.

Get dental floss (hopefully unflavoured but if not wash it well first)

use a really long piece and shove/slide it down the edge of the cak on the short side using a knife or two.

when you are really sure its right at the bottom of the cake, use a fork or knife or spatula to slide /wiggle it under and along the bottom of the cake bit by bit and alternate sides

then pull it up at the far end

it should release the cake and you can turn the tin upsidedown and bang it on the table top

the only risk is that you dont get the floss to the bottom or keep it at the bottom as you go along

serve the cake with the finished edge up, and if you really have to have it the other way up, drizzle it with some icing sugar mixed with orange juice (or other liquid) and decorate with some almond slices or coconut or slices of berries etc

I would turn it upside down and leave it for a while. If the doesn't work gently easing a fish slice under from one end.

Not a clue...but do please let us know if anything does shift the darn thing out of the tin.
🤞

How about putting cake/loaf tin in freezer overnight. A frozen cake is more likely to slide out when side of tin is bashed. Or if no seams in tin, place the base of the tin in hot water tomorrow morning. Hopefully it will expand and release the frozen cake. Same principle as running hot water over a jam jar lid.

Frozen cake will be easy to ce and defrosts quickly at room temperature.

Good luck!

*easy to ice!

Stupid question, but did you line the tin with baking paper?

I suggest eating it with a spoon straight from the tin for dinner (with a glass of wine preferably) then buying one from Tesco on the way to the coffee morning tomorrow. If you really want you could take the packaging off the Tesco one in the car park and chuck some sprinkles on top to make it look homemade….

Cake update:

I managed to get it mostly out of the tin using some extra strong sewing thread. However for some reason it snapped in the middle. I knew I should have just gouged it out of the sodding tin instead.

Anyway I have neatened up the edges with a bread knife. The scraps have gone in the 13 year old who was circling like a vulture. She had been told earlier that if she touched my cake then bad things would happen so the scraps were much appreciated. The 2 chunks of cake have been glacé iced (thanks @ElizabethinherGermanGarden for the tip). Once the icing has set it'll be sliced up and arranged artfully on a plate hopefully hiding the fact that I fecked it up in the first place.

But yeah, I should have brought a cake instead.