Just to check a few things- are you running a knife or spatula around the edges, pressing it against the pan sides, before unmolding?  And when you say pam, is it pam for baking or regular pan spray?  I find the best release to come with either baker’s joy or shortening and wondra flour.

Also, the white velvet interior is fairly white, but because it’s made with butter it does have a bit of an off-white color compared to a white cake made with shortening (which lacks taste).  As long as you didn’t get yolks in the batter or use butter with an unusually yellow color, I suspect you probably achieved the proper off-white color of the cake. 

You can see it in a photo of the white lilac nostalgia cake (TCB) or the chocolate covered strawberry cake (RHC).

McBrownie,  I don’t have a picture.  Next time I bake it I will post picture before and after I frost it.  My sides and top of the cake come out of the pan beautifully.  No rough edges.  I could serve as is.

Julie- Yup. Even before I unmold it, as i’m taking it out of the oven, i can see that it is released from the pan after a few minutes, but there are ‘crumbs’ attached to it. it’s not like a solid unit, crust-y unit.
I’m not sure what’s the difference between Pam and regular pan spray, but it says Pam on the container :\
We don’t have baker’s joy in here [or shortening. And what is wondra flour?]
And thanks for the tip about the chocolate strawberry cake!

Kathy- Thank you!

Just wanted to post a picture of the cake in case anyone else has my problem.
This is the cake that was baked in a pan without the [homemade] strips.

I think it is whiter than the other ones, for some reason.

McBrownie, where are you located?  Are you using UNBLEACHED flour?  If so, that would be the cause of your cake falling in the middle.  Check Rose’s blog post, “The Power of Flour” for tips on using unbleached flour.  But for starters it’s a small decrease in baking powder, as well as cutting the flour with starch (like potato starch) in order to bring down the protein content and strengthen gelation enough to help keep the dipping in the center to a minimum.  There are lower protein flours available in Europe (like Italian 00 flour) for pastry, but they are not bleached and have a tendency to dip in the middle.  European pastry flours tend to run at about 9-10% protein, versus about 8% for U.S. cake flour, so it may be a personal choice as to whether to cut it with starch or not.

The color of your slice has a beige-y quality that makes me think your flour might be unbleached.

As for the pan sides, it’s pretty normal for a small bit of the crust to remain stuck to the pan, that’s why you need to run the spatula around it.  You can also seek out a pan with a non-stick coating, which will help eliminate that tendency.  The perfect way to prepare the sides is coated with a fat and then dusted with flour, the pan tapped to remove any excess flour.  The best fat is one that is saturated (solid at room temp) and 100% fat.  So, clarified butter (clarified to remove the milk solids and water) or shortening, which here is 100% palm fruit oil, solid at room temp.

Hope that helps

Julie- Thanks!
First of all I have to say that the middle-sinking problem has been solved the middle I put the cake on the middle rack, rather than the lower third, so that problem is past-tensed.
I am located in Israel- and here we don’t have bleached or unbleached, at least not commonly. Am I supposed to use bleached [which I can’t find anyway, but for general knowledge]?

There is one major flour company that, in their FAQ section on the site, responded that the equivelant of unbleached flour is, [what is translated to:] “Bread-Flour”, which is high in gluten so I don’t think I should use it.
I don’t know exactly if that helps but that Bread-flour is 11% protein [11g protein per 100g flour]. The regular, AP flour is 10.1% .
We do have cake flour, which is 9.5% protein, and a “cookie-flour”, which is 10%.
When I made the cakes I used the starch method, and replaced 10% AP flour with cornstarch.

For the sides- We don’t have shortening here also, but we do have butter which is surprisingly whiter than the US ones from what I can gather, and margerine. Oh and clarified butter! that’s great to hear, I will try it soon.

Right now I think maybe if I DON’T flour the pans, they will come out cleaner.
It’s a bummer only because I just bought these Magic-Line pans but I’ll just have to work my way around that.

Thanks again for all that helpful information!