How Silicone Baking Mats Are Ruining Your Cookies

After I am writing a recipe for cookies, I on a regular basis make some extent of expressly calling for a parchment-lined baking sheet. Particulars like this may be simple to gloss over, nonetheless they’re going to make a large distinction in how a cookie appears. At any time when a reader writes in asking me to troubleshoot cookies that unfold an extreme quantity of, browned an extreme quantity of, and turned out greasier than these pictured inside the recipe, my first question is type of on a regular basis “Have been they baked on silicone?”

As a rule, the reply is certain.

Skinny, Greasy, and Darkish? Blame Silicone

Further unfold could possibly be introduced on by totally different factors (considerably under-creaming the butter and sugar), greasiness can relate to points with butter and flour style, and over-browning can relate to wonky baking soda measurements or darkish baking sheets. Nonetheless when these three complaints current up collectively, the offender is type of on a regular basis silicone.

Try it out.

Above, we have my skinny and crisp Tate’s-style chocolate chip cookies, baked on parchment. Below, cookies from the equivalent batch of dough, baked within the equivalent oven, on the equivalent rack, for the same dimension of time, nonetheless on a silicone baking mat.

The excellence in browning and unfold is extreme. Whereas a few of us may think the second tray has an appeal to of its private, that mystique will disappear with a single chunk: The cookies baked on silicone are dense and greasy, with a boring crunch, and a contact of bitterness from excessive browning.

The Penalties of Excessive Spreading

Silicone impacts how heat is carried out to the dough, and its nonstick flooring permits for further unfold. On account of the dough spreads faster, it bakes faster and puffs a lot much less, resulting in browner, denser cookies lacking the delicate crunch and honeycomb crumb of a cookie that rose inside the oven as supposed.

On account of silicone isn’t as breathable as parchment, cookies left to relax on the baking sheet could sweat alongside their bottoms, which does no favors for his or her texture, whether or not or not acknowledged cookie is meant to be crunchy or mushy.

In cookies which may be designed to unfold, accelerating that course of can exaggerate the implications of silicone; in these which can be supposed to maintain thick and fluffy, the outcomes may be further refined.

Take my DIY Lofthouse cookies, as an illustration. Baked on parchment, they show like little muffin tops, tender, pale, and mushy by and through—the exact attributes we’re trying to find in a mushy and cakey sugar cookie like this.

Baked on silicone, nonetheless, they unfold further and thin out throughout the perimeters, turning crisp.

This attribute may enchantment to some bakers, nonetheless it isn’t how the cookies are imagined to show, and anyone craving a mushy and tender sugar cookie could be sorely dissatisfied to come back throughout an epic crunch.

For me, there will not be any occasions when baking on silicone is preferable to using parchment. For a lot of who don’t perception my judgment, know that Alton Brown himself feels the equivalent meansgoing so far as to say he vastly prefers parchment.

And, in case you occur to’re concerned about minimizing waste inside the kitchen, your piece of parchment is larger than a one-hit marvel. A quick wipe with a cloth will put off any grease or particles, which means {{that a}} single sheet could possibly be reused just about as many situations as you care to take care of it spherical. Plus, many producers of unbleached parchment paper are compostable as successfully (along with Reynolds and If You Care) or else biodegradable (paying homage to Paper Chef).

Study Further

October 2019