Lakeland Garden Gang Cake Tin

Lakeland do a number of cake moulds which make prettily shaped cakes, of which this Garden Gang Cake Tim is one of the more complex: it makes eight cakes, two each of bee, dragonfly, butterfly, and ladybird. The cake tin is heavy and solid, non-stick, apparently of very good quality: it cost me just over £25 when I bought it for myself last Christmas. I have since used it four times. The first time, having greased the moulds thoroughly and sieved them with flour, the cakes all came out of the mould perfectly, very satisfactory. I spent quite some time cleaning the mould afterwards, very carefully with hot water and soap and a plastic scrubber, so as not to damage the non-stick coating nor leave flecks of cake or flour behind. The second time, one or two of them resisted and I did not get all eight out whole. Again, I spent some time cleaning the mould, not stopping until, as carefully as I could, I had got the surface smooth and clean. At no point did I use anything metallic or anything likely to scour off the non-stick coating. The third time, I got only half the cakes out whole, and none of the particularly fragile ones were entire. The fourth and last time I shall use this mould, not one of the cakes could be got out whole. This despite all the care I took to clean the mould thoroughly, and never once using anything likely to damage the non-stick coating. The cakes were not burned: the mould simply seems to have been made so that it is effectively a one-shot use, with dimishing use thereafter. For £25, this is not good value for money: it would have cost me less, given my time and the cost of ingredients, to buy eight fancy cakes a one-shot, and not to waste my time or the ingredients thereafter. I wouldn't recommend anyone buying this unless they can afford to throw away that kind of money for a one-use cake mould. I am an experienced baker, but this was my first attempt with an intricate mould: I risked it because Lakeland in general delivers good-quality bakeware. I was not impressed with this.