Cookie time: Silpat or parchment?

News Type: Opinion — Seeded on Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:42 PM EST

Article Source: The L.A. Times

entertainment, food, cooking, cookies, baking, cookie, parchment, silpat

Hand-chopped chocolate, freshly roasted nuts, fragrant, just-grated ginger: These are some of the top-quality ingredients that go into this issue's winning cookie recipes. And when friends and family bite into one of these babies, those are the flavors you want them to taste.

What's the best way to prepare baking sheets to give your holiday cookies the best send-off: the old-fashioned way (i.e., buttered or naked, depending on the recipe), using parchment paper or using a silicon pan liner such as Silpat?

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Groups: Foodies!
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{"commentId":427010,"authorDomain":"winknut"}

winknut

I always use parchment when baking. I tried the slpimat and didn't really care for it. The parchment you can cut to size so it fits all of the cookie sheets that you may possess and for large runs, many dozens, you can prep your cookies out in layers and not have to bother with having 10 or twenty slipmats available, just slide the baked layer off of the sheet and add the raw to the sheet and right back in the oven. They keep the cookies/baked thingy from sticking, but almost as important the clean up is a breeze. Usually, if your baked item doesn't have melt down and go everywhere, I don't even bother. Then you can just toss the parchment sheet, or if you're more environmentally friendly, reuse them until they start to turn a little bit yellow.

And a word of warning from experience... I use parchment a lot for many applications, maybe I'll write an article about all the cool stuff you can do with it, but anyways... don't use in applications over 400F. The parchment WILL burn and leave you a smoky mess and an annoying fire alarm beeping in your ear (500F oven+pizzastone+proofed dough+parchment=having to explain to the local firepersons why you were trying to cook paper at 500F. Clearly I had never read Fahrenheit 454...

{"commentId":427010,"threadId":"60911","contentId":"480657","authorDomain":"winknut"}

4 votes

#1 - Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:45 PM EST

{"commentId":431732,"authorDomain":"LAUHAL63"}

lauhal

I vote for good old parchment!

{"commentId":431732,"threadId":"60911","contentId":"480657","authorDomain":"LAUHAL63"}

4 votes

#1.1 - Sat Dec 16, 2006 4:46 PM EST

{"commentId":431736,"authorDomain":"marilynl"}

Marilyn L

I'm a parchment gal, too!

{"commentId":431736,"threadId":"60911","contentId":"480657","authorDomain":"marilynl"}

3 votes

#1.2 - Sat Dec 16, 2006 4:50 PM EST

{"commentId":427012,"authorDomain":"winknut"}

winknut

BTW- the bugmenot link is great! That should really get spotlighted(lit?) somewhere. Somewhere nice and discrete though...

{"commentId":427012,"threadId":"60911","contentId":"480657","authorDomain":"winknut"}

2 votes

#2 - Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:47 PM EST

{"commentId":432930,"authorDomain":"winknut"}

winknut

seems like the title is just screaming to be a poll too...

{"commentId":432930,"threadId":"60911","contentId":"480657","authorDomain":"winknut"}

3 votes

#3 - Sun Dec 17, 2006 7:50 PM EST

{"commentId":437278,"authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

Michael Sautter

Here's the poll: Silpat or Parchment Paper?

{"commentId":437278,"threadId":"60911","contentId":"480657","authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

1 vote

#3.1 - Wed Dec 20, 2006 1:11 AM EST

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MICHAEL SAUTTER

Backyard

Cookie time: Silpat or parchment?

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