Reconsider Your Baking Pan: Heavy-duty baking sheets or pans, lined with nonstick baking mats or parchment paper are the best surface for baking chocolate chip cookies.
Parchment creates better cookies
Unlike aluminum foil and wax paper, parchment is treated with silicone, giving it a non-stick quality. That translates to a freshly baked batch, without having to peel slivers of silver from the bottom of your baker’s dozen.
The less friction there is on the pan, the more cookies will spread. So an ungreased pan is best. If you can find untreated parchment paper, that will also help reduce spread—but recent experience suggests that most parchment paper these days has some sort of nonstick coating on it.
It’s possible to get perfectly browned cookies using any type of pan, and using/not using parchment. You simply have to adjust your baking time.
Using parchment paper or a silicone baking mat is the best way to completely stop cookies from sticking to the baking tray. With these, the cookies will lift off the tray with ease. If you don’t have these, you can grease your baking tray with a thin layer of fat, such as spray oil or shortening.
When should you not use parchment paper?
When Not to Use Parchment Paper. Parchment paper is not designed for high heat cooking. Avoid using it in your oven or on the grill if temperature will exceed 400 degrees, says Michelle Weaver, chef at Charleston Grill in South Carolina, as there’s a chance it could catch fire.
Does parchment paper affect baking time?
It changes cooking times and scratches off when you clean it – unless you are unbelievably careful – which I am not.) One day I realized that baking recipes sometimes mention parchment paper.
Use a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Coating your baking sheet with nonstick spray or butter creates an overly greasy foundation, causing the cookies to spread. I always recommend a silicone baking mat because they grip onto the bottom of your cookie dough, preventing the cookies from spreading too much.
If your cookies repeatedly turn out flat, no matter the recipe, chances are your oven is too hot. Here’s what’s happening. The butter melts super quickly in a too-hot oven before the other ingredients have firmed up into a cookie structure. Therefore, as the butter spreads so does the whole liquidy cookie.
Which side of parchment paper goes up?
There is no right or wrong side to parchment paper, so either side can be used. For the best baking results, use a fresh sheet of parchment paper for each pan of cookies.
Indeed, parchment paper is the clear winner for all of your baking needs because, unlike foil, it distributes your oven’s heat more evenly and keeps the highly-concentrated heat of your metal baking pan (or foil lining) from scorching the bottoms of your cookies.
As a general rule, you can bake cookies without a cookie sheet by using any tray, dish, or bakeware that could be used in the oven. You can use a regular cake pan, glass pan, pizza tray, or disposable aluminum foil tray.
Is parchment paper necessary?
Many baking recipes for cakes, muffins or quick breads skip the parchment entirely and just call for greasing and flouring the pan to prevent sticking. For roasting or baking savory foods, aluminum foil is a good alternative that allows for a simple clean-up.
What’s the difference between parchment paper and baking paper?
Parchment paper is actually the same thing as baking paper. It’s just that in some parts of the world it’s called one thing and in other parts of the world, it’s called another. The only difference is between parchment or baking paper, and wax paper.
Is parchment paper safer than aluminum foil?
A: Yes, when roasting vegetables, parchment paper is better than foil. Recent research in the International Journal of Electrochemical Science suggests that when we use aluminum foil during cooking, some aluminum leaches into food.
Should I grease and flour parchment paper?
Parchment paper is already non-stick, so there’s generally no need to grease your parchment paper. And if you’re baking cookies, greasing the parchment paper will likely cause your cookies to overspread and become greasy, so definitely skip the grease.
Do you grease pan before parchment paper?
Baking parchment should not need greasing once it is in the pan, though some people like to grease it as well. Greaseproof paper should be greased once it is in the base of the pan. Melted butter is the best greasing agent. Brush the melted butter evenly on the base and edges of the pan using a pastry brush.
In most cookie recipes, you are instructed to cream room-temperature butter and sugar together. This is because mixing the butter and sugar granules creates air pockets in the dough, which results in puffier cookies.
So long as they end up evenly flat, that is; squashing cookies haphazardly under your palm means they may bake and brown unevenly. Still, if you care deeply (or even casually) about the look of your cookies, you can take the flattening step as an opportunity for enhancement. The bottom of a glass works fine, it’s true.
Why Do Cookies Get Hard? Like all baked treats, cookies are subject to getting stale. Over time, the moisture in the cookies evaporates, leaving them stiff and crumbly. It’s the same thing that happens to breads, muffins, and other baked goods.
Mistake: When cookies turn out flat, the bad guy is often butter that is too soft or even melted. This makes cookies spread. The other culprit is too little flour—don’t hold back and make sure you master measuring. Finally, cookies will also flatten if placed and baked on hot cookie sheets.
Chilling cookie dough
- Chilling cookie dough for just 30 minutes makes a big difference. The cookies pictured above are the same size, weight-wise.
- The longer you chill cookie dough, the smaller the changes become.
- Over time, chilling cookie dough produces cookies with darker color and more pronounced flavor.
Cookie chemistry: We’re taking a 180° turn from our crunchy cookies, substituting higher-moisture brown sugar and butter for their lower-moisture counterparts: granulated sugar and vegetable shortening. That, plus a shortened baking time, yields a cookie that’s soft and chewy all the way through.
Why does my food stick to parchment paper?
“When ingredients are heated, especially chocolate, jelly and sugar, they can become sticky and hard, making them likely to adhere to the paper. This is fairly unavoidable, since these ingredients are in most pastries,” states Richards.
Is there a difference between white and brown parchment paper?
Parchment paper comes in two different types: bleached and unbleached. The difference between bleached and unbleached parchment paper is the bleached is white in color and has been processed with chlorine, while the unbleached is brown and is chlorine free.
Use a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Coating your baking sheet with nonstick spray or butter creates an overly greasy foundation which leads to excess spread. Instead, I recommend lining your baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
Is parchment paper better than foil?
Also, research by the International Journal of Electrochemical Science found that small amounts of aluminum may leach into food during the cooking process. Like with wax paper, if there is heat your best bet is parchment paper. Some people line their ovens with foil to prevent messes. This is a big no-no, too.
Yes, you can. Aluminum foil produces crisp cookies with moist insides. It bakes cookies faster and has an easier cleanup process. Keep in mind that aluminum foil will make the cookies darker and crispier than other methods.
The best surface to roll out cookie dough (and really any dough) is a marble surface. This can be a marble countertop or a marble pastry board. Marble is cool to the touch and very smooth when polished for kitchen use, but it can be pricy.
Roll dough between sheets of parchment or waxed paper
Rather than roll dough on a floured surface, roll it between sheets of non-stick parchment or waxed paper. Adding extra flour to dough as a result of rolling can make cookies tough.
Use non-stick cooking spray. Spray your counter top, rolling pin, hands and cookie cutters with non-stick spray. This will keep the dough from sticking and will keep all of your surfaces clean without having to sprinkle more flour on the dough.
If you “accidentally” add too much sugar to your dough, it can cause the bottom of your cookie to caramelize and burn.
As a designer of professional cooking equipment and working hand in hand with a professional chef, the type of baking sheet most often used by professionals is the heavy aluminum with 4 sides. Aluminum takes on the heat very evenly and gives the best baking results overall.
Should I grease my cookie sheets? Unless the recipe tells you to grease the cookie sheet, resist the impulse. The extra grease causes cookie dough (which already contains a lot of fat) to spread. If you’re concerned about cookies sticking, line the cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone non-stick mat.
Wax paper is very similar to parchment paper. Meaning, it’s non-stick and moisture-resistant. However, you can’t utilize it for baking cookies or anything else in the oven because the wax could melt. Or even catch fire inside your oven.
What is the purpose of parchment paper?
Lining a baking sheet when making cookies: Not only will the parchment help cookies bake more evenly, the non-stick quality also helps prevent them from cracking or breaking when lifting them off the sheet. Decorating home-baked goods: Parchment paper makes the perfect wrapper for baked goods.
Should baking paper be shiny side up?
The shinier or glossy side of the parchment paper will be the one coated with the silicon, so this is the side that should be coming into contact with your food (and should therefore be the side that goes up).
What is parchment paper good for?
Lining a sheet pan with parchment not only protects the pan but also the food, whether you’re roasting vegetables or baking cookies, biscuits and more. It can act as a layer of insulation between the pan and the food, to keep it from burning or sticking and to ensure even cooking.
Is parchment paper unhealthy?
Unbleached parchment paper is non-toxic. However, bleached parchment paper has toxic dioxin, which can be released when heated. These toxins are potentially dangerous to your body and can cause a variety of health issues. As a result, unbleached parchment paper is preferable to bleached.
Are silicone baking mats better than parchment paper?
Are Silicone Baking Mats Better Than Parchment? The mats certainly have advantages over parchment paper. They’re easy to slip into a baking sheet, and their comparative weight (60 to 117 grams) helps them stay put better than even our favorite parchment sheets (4 grams).
Why do you butter the pan before parchment paper?
Best practices will have you grease the cake or baking pan (to help the paper stay in place), line it with parchment, then grease the parchment to make baked good liberation go as smoothly as possible.
For starters, chilling prevents cookies from spreading out too quickly once they’re in the oven. If you use a higher fat butter (like Kerrygold), chilling your dough is absolutely essential. Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool.
The most common reason why your cookies don’t spread is that you’ve added too much flour. Adding more dry ingredients than the recipe calls for can result in a dough that is too stiff. Moisture and fat in the dough are soaked up by the excessive amount of flour which takes away its ability to spread.
Q: Why are my cookies so puffy and cakey? Whipping too much air into the dough. That fluffy texture you want in a cake results from beating a lot of air into the room temperature butter and sugar, and it does the same for cookies. So don’t overdo it when you’re creaming together the butter and sugar.
Follow our simple tips and techniques and you’ll turn out perfect cookies every time.
- Bake Better Cookies.
- Soften Your Butter.
- Creaming Butter.
- Measure Your Flour Correctly.
- Line Your Pans With Parchment Paper.
- Add Eggs One at a Time.
- Add Flour or Dry Ingredients in Batches.
- Fold in Chocolate Chips by Hand.
Bake at 375 degrees F until golden and tender, 12 to 15 minutes. For crispy-cakey cookies: Bake the cookies at 425 degrees F until golden and crunchy on the outside, 8 to 10 minutes.
Cookie dough can be mixed by hand or with an electric mixer. Take butter or margarine from refrigerator 10-15 minutes before using or cut into 1-inch pieces so it will blend more easily and evenly with other ingredients.
Keep those cookies crisp by storing them in an airtight container. Some people toss a piece of bread in with the cookies to help absorb any excess moisture. You could also re-crisp them by baking on a wire rack in a 300 degree F oven for a few minutes.
Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They’ll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven’s hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.
9 Tips to Remember
- Use Real Butter and Keep It Cool. The low melting point of butter may be what makes your cookies flat.
- Use Shortening.
- Chill Dough Twice.
- Use Parchment Paper or a Silicone Liner.
- Measure Precisely.
- Use Fresh Baking Soda.
- Use Optional Add-Ins.
- Buy an Oven Thermometer.
The combination of the toasted grain with the browned butter, caramelized sugar, vanilla and chocolate are “the beautiful rich flavors that blend together in a chocolate chip cookie,” she said. And as the chocolate melts, it becomes more aromatic and punches up the flavor.
Sugar is solid at room temperature, but it liquefies when heated. If you’re heavy-handed when measuring, that extra sugar means extra liquid and more spread when the cookies bake up in the oven. Using too little flour could lead to flat cookies, too.