Some cooks are slow learners. Take me, for example. I go through cans of Pam like cotton candy at a carnival, trying to coerce my culinary concoctions to avoid sticking to the pots and pans. Sometimes they stick and sometimes they don’t, but even if cookies – for example- fail to cling to the baking sheet, the Pam residue leaves a sticky mess when it’s time to scrub down the dishes. Recently I re-discovered a miracle product in my kitchen drawer that contains tin foil, Zip-locks and Saran Wrap, and that’s parchment paper. I now use this amazing wrap when cooking many of my dishes, especially when baking cookies.
I have been baking a lot of cookies recently, usually 24 at a time and I don’t like to put two cookie sheets in the oven at once. Superstition, I suppose. So, I’d spray each cookie sheet with Pam and have some serious clean up after baking two batches.
Then, one day it dawned on me to put a piece of parchment on the cookie sheet and give that a try.
When the first batch of cookies was done, I let them cool about one minute, then slid all the cookies off parchment paper. On the same baking sheet and paper, I put another dozen cookies and baked the second batch. The cookies turned out perfectly – not a single stick-to the-pan renegade – and the clean up on the one pan was simply a wipe down with a cloth – super easy.
I am now using parchment when I roast vegetables, using a little olive oil and lots of coarse kosher salt for dishes like roasted broccoli, baby carrots, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and red potatoes.
Parchment paper, sometimes called bakery paper, is cellulose-based and creates a non-stick surface that will not catch fire in a hot oven.
Using sulfuric acid in the manufacturing process, the result is a paper with high density, stability and heat resistance. And nothing sticks to it!
I’m sure veteran cooks and chefs have had sense enough to use parchment paper for years, but as I said, I’m a slow learner.
Since this is a “Now We’re Cooking” column, I suppose I should offer a recipe of some sort, so here is one for Krusteaz Snickerdoodle Cookies – which rank right near the very top in my book of great cookies.
I love this Krusteaz stuff – great cookies, muffins and baking products, and each recipe calls for copious quantities of butter. How can you go wrong with that?
I don’t know where the word Snickerdoodle came from, but it is an age-old recipe for cookies that uses vanilla, butter, eggs, flour (or cake mix), sugar and cinnamon. With the Krusteaz mix, all you need is an egg and a stick of room temperature butter. Mix thoroughly; roll the raw cookies in cinnamon sugar and bake (on parchment paper) for 12 minutes. Unbelievably rich and tasty cookies.
Try some. And if you are not using parchment paper on a daily basis, get with the program!
Krusteaz Snickerdoodle Cookies
1 box Krusteaz Snickerdoodle cookie mix
1 egg
1 stick room temperature butter
Mix above ingredients; roll cookies in a separate mix of cinnamon sugar and bake at 375 for 12 minutes