Wondering how to butter and flour a baking pan efficiently without making a big mess of wasted flour? You’re in the right place!
I actually rarely butter and flour pans since pan spray like Vegalene usually works well for me and is easier, but I still do it on occasion when a recipe specifies it. The easy method I use below results in a nicely buttered and floured pan with minimal mess and waste.
Materials
You’ll need:
- your baking pan
- softened butter (room temperature or lightly microwaved)
- a food-safe brush or food-safe gloves (you can also just use your own clean hands if you don’t mind)
- flour
- a piece of parchment paper larger than your baking pan
- a bowl or container to deposit the extra flour
If you can remember to butter and flour your pan before mixing the batter that’s going into it, you can use the extra flour directly in your recipe so nothing is left over – how convenient!
Otherwise, I recommend saving it in a small container of “bench flour”* for dusting dough or surfaces while baking. (I also use this for feeding my sourdough starter!) You can also put it back in your original flour container if it looks clean and you’re not concerned with any minor contamination it might have picked up in the process.
*Why keep separate bench flour? If you practice good kitchen hygiene, you can expect your bench flour to stay clean! Keeping a separate bench flour container just gives you extra peace of mind in knowing all the flour you’ve been touching or that has been on your countertop is in there. On the off-chance it does get contaminated, the damage is contained and you don’t have to throw out all of your flour.
Step-by-step process
- Lay your parchment paper on your work surface.
- Using your brush or gloved fingers, coat the inside of the pan with a layer of softened butter.
- Put a decent amount of flour in the pan, filling it to roughly 10-20% full. Add flour to each well if using a pan with multiple wells. (I usually use about 1 Tbsp per well for regular muffin cups.)
- Shake the pan gently from side to side until the flour has coated the entire bottom of the pan.
- Holding the pan over the parchment paper, carefully flip the pan vertically so the inside is facing you. The flour will fall to bottom side of the pan.
- Slowly rotate the pan over the parchment paper, letting flour fall onto the parchment paper as it coats the sides of the pan. Pause to add more flour and resume if needed.
- When the entire interior of the pan is coated with flour, dump the remaining flour out onto the parchment paper. Your pan is now buttered and floured! 🎉
- Lift the edges of the parchment paper to gather the extra flour to the center.
- Using the parchment paper as a funnel, pour the extra flour into wherever you’d like to keep it for future use.
There you have it – super simple, no mess on your countertop, and no flour thrown away! 😊