Thoughts on Parchment

Parchment paper. Also known as cooking parchment, baking parchment or kitchen parchment, is available in most supermarkets and culinary shops. People know generally what it is, but I am surprised how few of our customers know when to properly use it.

First, a definition. Parchment paper is made by infusing paper with silicone, creating a stable and heat resistant element which imparts good anti-stick or release properties. You generally see two types of parchment paper for sale, bleached and unbleached. They are sold in rolled form in boxes.

The unbleached variety will not have a metal cutting edge. This makes the entire box recyclable.

The bleached variety is white, of course, having been bleached white with chlorine and the unbleached version is brown. The bleached variety paper might contain toxic dioxin residues and is often frowned upon by environmental and health conscious people.

The unbleached paper often has the additional benefit of usually being made from recycled paper.

Parchment can be used to help keep clean up to a minimum on baking pans. I like to use them under tin foil when roasting or baking, again to help with clean up and protect the pan. Generally, people use parchment on baking sheets for cookies, biscuits, meatloaf, etc. but miss out on one key use in cake pans. When baking a cake, the cake will pull away from the sides when it is done. The troubles begin on the bottom, or top however you want to look at it. Any sticking in a cake pan will occur there. Putting parchment on the bottom will prevent sticking. The parchment will peel off easily after the cake is turned out of the pan. The best method is to butter the cake pan, place parchment on the bottom, butter over the parchment.

I know what you are thinking, “How does one cut the rectangular shaped parchment into circles?” Easy, place the cake pan on the parchment sheet, draw a light line in pencil around the bottom and cut. If it doesn’t fit exactly, trim it.

There is a method using folding and cutting, where you fold a large sheet into quarters and then continue down to a narrow wedge; eyeball it by placing the tip at the center of the pan and then cut according to its radius.

I personally feel the tracing method is easier. Easier still are precut 8″ and 9″ parchment rounds.

They are very easy and very convenient. You will also see precut parchment sheets for 13×18 and 15×21 sheet pans.

However, these precut sheets are only being made in the bleached variety.

I sometimes use parchment under certain breads. These are breads which I want to rise in a more free form fashion. I slide the parchment with the bread on it, right in the heated oven. After about 15 minutes or so, I slide the darkened parchment out from under the bread. Why? I don’t know, because I use a peel to pull the bread from the oven and the parchment gets in my way.

In the toaster oven, I prefer parchment paper, as the size of my little oven makes cut parchment easier to use.

In light of my recent post about silicone, I thought we would talk about the other option for parchment sheets – silicone baking mats.

There is, of course, the original silicone baking sheet, Silpat. Silpat, ever the traditionalist, does not make specialty sizes. However, many companies are making varied sizes of silicone baking mats and some even making them round to fit inside cake pans.


Since parchment has silicone in it, why not use silicone baking mats? You aren’t getting away from silicone and they are cheaper in the long run. A silicone mat can provide roughly 2000 uses. A roll box of parchment will give approximately 35 uses. So even at $5 a box for bleached parchment, that is around $300 or so for the same amount of uses which is way more than $20 silicone mats. Silicone mats are more environmentally sound as they produce less trash. Some will recommend putting used, unbleached, recycled parchment in the compost pile. However, the problem is that depending on what was cooked on it, residual food bits will make it inappropriate for the compost. Additionally, the most popular brand of unbleached, recycled parchment paper sold in the U.S. is made in Sweden; not a good carbon foot print.

However, silicone baking mats can’t do everything that parchment can do in your kitchen. There are cooking methods, such as en papillote in the French or al Cartoccio in Italian, where one places food in parchment and seals it up for baking in an oven or grill. Also, one can wrap cheese and other foods in parchment for storage. For cheese, there is a less rigid version of parchment made specifically for cheese storage and then of course, wax paper. Wax paper is simply wax covered paper. As an aside, I don’t like using wax paper for baking and cooking because I don’t like the idea of melting wax in my oven or food. Parchment paper can also be used as disposable, pastry bags. Just cut to the size desired, roll up into a conical shape and fill. If attempting to use decorating tips, fasten the parchment with tape before inserting the decorating tip. There are precut decorating triangles made for this very purpose.

You may have heard stories about parchment paper catching fire in an oven or toaster oven. This can happen but only if the paper comes too close to the heat source. Under normal conditions it will discolor and even burn, but catching fire is rare.

Which is better? Silicone baking mats end up being the best environmental choice, if that is your focus. If convenience and versatility is your thing, parchment is the way to go. In the end, there is room for both parchment paper and silicone baking mats in your house. I do own both and use them for different purposes, most of the time. However, sometimes I just feel that parchment is a good choice, unless I use silicone mats.

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