Recipes sometimes ask for a “lined cake tin”.  The lining stops the cake mixture from sticking to the side of the tin and help make it easier to remove the cake once it is cooked.  You can buy reusable non-stick liners and they are brilliant.  They are quite expensive though and you can achieve the same results using greaseproof paper, which you can buy from the supermarket.

You simply need to cut the paper to fit the size of tin you are lining.

For a round tin, place the tin on top of the paper and draw a circle around the outside.

Cut the circle out and place it in the base of the tin.

Next, measure the circumference of the tin.  You can do this with a tape measure or you can simply hold the roll of paper up and pull the paper around the outside of the tin (as if you were going to clumsily wrap the outside).  Then cut a strip that is slightly longer than the circumference so that when it is placed inside the tin, the paper will overlap a little and slightly higher than the tin so that the cake could rise higher than the tin if necessary.

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Place the strip around the inside of the tin and ease it around so that it fits right up against the side and there is a slight overlap.  If the overlap threatens to flap open (and mine is flaring just a little in the picture) you can always use a dot of butter or the cake mixture to stick it back to the other sheet.

Sometimes the recipe will ask for the tin to be “greased and lined”.  If so, you need to take a little butter and a piece of the greaseproof paper and rub a small amount of butter over the base and sides of the tin before lining the tray with the paper.