NON-STICK CAKE LINERS FOR BAKING TINS

In this post, I explain how to make your own non-stick, reusable baking liners for circular cake tins from fibreglass grill mats.

I have recently started experimenting with cooking and making cakes in the breadmaker. I found a recipe for brownies that I liked but I wanted a quick method that could be whipped up in minutes, without the faff of having to prepare the cake tin. Although greaseproof paper was the easiest thing to use, I wasn’t happy with the fact that you have to buy it and you can’t reuse it, and so thought about the idea of reusable cake liners. When I started looking, these do exist,  but they tend to be expensive and I saw one for about 30 euros on an Australian site.

BARBECUE MATS AND OVEN LINERS

After a bit of thought, I came up with the idea of using the grill mats that you can buy to keep your barbecue or the bottom of your oven clean. These are generally made of fibreglass and can withstand high temperatures. They are also quite thin (2mm thick) and so can be cut with scissors. I knew from the size of the greaseproof paper that I used to line the cake tin that the mats would have to be at least 34cm wide. As I’ve got a round cake tin, I also bought a compass.

MARKING THE GRILL MAT

I set the compass to the internal radius of the cake tin (8.75cm) and drew a circle in the middle of the grill mat. I put the point of the compass on the diameter and marked the points where the compass crossed to divide the circumference evenly into six.

The internal radius was 8.75cm and the sides measured 10cm. Adding these two figures together, I set the compass to this new measurement and drew a second circle with the same central point as before.

I cut out the grill mat round the second circle.

Using a ruler, I lined up opposite intersecting points on the first circle. I drew a line through them to connect the two circles. I then cut down from the outer circle to the first circle.