Q When it says to grease and flour a baking sheet, can I always just use parchment?

A The definitive answer is yes and no. Buttering and flouring is one way to be sure cakes won't stick to the pan. Use parchment, or cheaper wax paper, to line the bottom of the pan, but you should still butter and flour the sides.

Just in case the buttering and flouring business seems confusing, here is how it works. Take a small piece of butter, grasp it with a paper towel and rub it all over the inside of your cake pan. Spoon in 2 heaping tablespoons of flour and tilt the pan this way and that so it completely coats the pan. Dump out excess flour. The flour's the dead giveaway to where you missed on the butter; it won't stick.

An unsolicited personal opinion: Avoid cooking sprays. Between the chemicals and the terrible flavor of the fats used, better to use butter or mild extra-virgin olive oil.

Q How far can you go down the health line in carrot-cake recipes? My mom's great carrot-cake recipe says to use vegetable oil (my mom used to melt Crisco, then she switched to corn oil to be healthier). Can I go further and use extra-virgin olive oil and whole-wheat flour instead of white?

A A mild extra-virgin olive oil works beautifully in any cake recipe calling for vegetable oil, and there's no chance of the trans fats you get in hydrogenated oils. Some brands to look for are Spectrum's Organic Extra-Virgin for everyday cooking, Whole Foods 365 Extra-Virgin and Sciabica Mission Variety Extra-Virgin from California (go to www.sciabica.com for more information).

Substituting whole-wheat for white flour in most cake recipes gives you hockey pucks, but carrot cake is more of a pudding of vegetables, fruits and nuts than a cake. It is already dense, so the weightiness of whole-wheat flour will not matter, and the flour's nutty flavor is a plus. Substitute organic whole-wheat flour (pastry flour, if possible) for half the white-flour measurement, and you are there.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper hosts "The Splendid Table," American Public Media's national food show, and is coauthor of "The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories and Opinions." Send questions to table@mpr.org.