I want to make a chocolate cake in a silicon pan. I want the cake to have a sort of "crust" on the sides that touch the pan so that it will have the design of the silicon pan when I release it from the pan. My cake is too "crumby" even when I froze the cake and then tried releasing it, the cake tore and had no definition.

I hope I'm making sense.
TIA

It sounds to me like you are not giving the pan enough of a greasing. I'm not familar w/using a silicon pan but I would think one should still grease & flour the bottom & sides as one would any other pan used to bake a cake in.

This^^. If you've ever worked with a character cake pan (I used to before I found out on CC it wasn't allowed for commercial sale) you will only see the outlines of the pan by greasing and flouring the tin properly. I used melted shortening to brush all the grooves and sides of the pan then coated in a thin layer of flour.

You aren't supposed to grease and flour a silicon pan, but i guess I can try it and see if it works. I'm going to try a mud cake today.

I read that about silicon pans too but they lie. I can't get any cake to come out of them if I don't grease them first.

I use homemade pan grease for all my pans and it works great for the ones with all the nooks and crannies.
You take equal parts flour, veg oil and shortening and mix it up. Then you use a pastry brush to coat your pans. Nothing sticks and the details come out great. I will say for my carrot cake I have to line the cake pan with parchment because the pecans and brown sugar cause it to stick but for all other recipes it's the best for prepping pans. It's also fast and CLEAN!

........aren't supposed to grease and flour a silicon pan........
.....read that about silicon pans too but they lie. I can't get any cake to come out of them if I don't grease them first.....

that's what I figured So now you have someone who has used them and knows how to work with them

I trieded that little bar pan for brownies to make them look like a little loaf and they stuck like crazy. Go ahead and grease and flour.

I have the WVU pans and I grease and flour them.

Thanks- I'll try it.

I didn't grease when I made the mud cake- but the recipe flopped anyway.
Onto the next recipe!