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I learned one reason why parchment paper and slideoff pans are great. When cookies first come out of the oven, there is a tendency for them to stick to the spatula as you move them off the baking sheet. With the butter cookies I was making, I found myself turning the spatula almost vertical and actually shaking it to try to get the cookie to slide off onto the cooling rack. That had very negative results! Of course if I shook hard enough the cookie would come off, but then it would land on its side an simply break, because they were still fairly soft. (I could literally turn the spatula upside down, and the cookie would adhere to the spatula instead of falling off!)
After cooling on the rack for a while, they no longer adhered to the spatula - but too late! Lots of recipes say to leave the cookies on the baking sheet for a minute or two to cool before moving to the baking sheet. I always thought it was solely because they were too soft to move, but I see it's also because you can't them off the blasted spatula when they're hot!
The attached photo is perhaps a little unclear, but it shows my nearly vertical spatula with a cookie doggedly hanging on despite good efforts to dislodge it. It's hard to see in the photo, but the spatula is actually about an inch above the cooling rack.
The problem with leaving cookies on a baking sheet is that they continue to bake on the hot baking sheet, making a bottom you don't want to get dark, dark. Or darker. It's important to move the cookies off the sheet after they can be moved without danger of breaking - or sticking fast to the spatula!
I learned from the Williams-Sonoma store's saleswoman that parchment paper is a type of paper that can be placed in the oven without it catching fire. It is commonly put on baking pans under cookies and placed right in the oven with them. After the cookies are done, you pull them out of the oven and slide the paper right off and onto the cooling rack, moving the full load of cookies all at once. It's a great way of getting all the cookies off the baking rack quickly, not only because you don't have to move them all individually, but because you don't have to wait for them to cool. What you do need for that is a baking sheet with at least one edge without a vertical side, because although you can maneuver the paper over a ridge, hot cookies will likely break as they pass over it.
So that's what the saleswoman said - but so what? I don't mind taking them off the pan one at a time, I'm not in that big a hurry! But after struggling with the spatula-loving cookie syndrome last night and tonight and breaking four cookies in a row a few minutes ago trying to get them off the spatula onto the cooling rack, I have determined to use parchment paper at every sensible opportunity. Waiting longer for them to cool on the pan is the other option, but I don't like it. :-)
Ahh, but wait! Hmm, if the idea is to slide the cookies off the tray baking sheet onto cooling racks all at once, that means having pretty big cooling racks, doesn't it? As big as the pan is! My cooling racks aren't nearly as big as my baking sheets. Dang! Sounds difficult. A good reason to have big cooling racks? Or maybe to be patient waiting for cookies to cool before removing the from the sheet. Dang!
After cooling on the rack for a while, they no longer adhered to the spatula - but too late! Lots of recipes say to leave the cookies on the baking sheet for a minute or two to cool before moving to the baking sheet. I always thought it was solely because they were too soft to move, but I see it's also because you can't them off the blasted spatula when they're hot!
The attached photo is perhaps a little unclear, but it shows my nearly vertical spatula with a cookie doggedly hanging on despite good efforts to dislodge it. It's hard to see in the photo, but the spatula is actually about an inch above the cooling rack.
The problem with leaving cookies on a baking sheet is that they continue to bake on the hot baking sheet, making a bottom you don't want to get dark, dark. Or darker. It's important to move the cookies off the sheet after they can be moved without danger of breaking - or sticking fast to the spatula!
I learned from the Williams-Sonoma store's saleswoman that parchment paper is a type of paper that can be placed in the oven without it catching fire. It is commonly put on baking pans under cookies and placed right in the oven with them. After the cookies are done, you pull them out of the oven and slide the paper right off and onto the cooling rack, moving the full load of cookies all at once. It's a great way of getting all the cookies off the baking rack quickly, not only because you don't have to move them all individually, but because you don't have to wait for them to cool. What you do need for that is a baking sheet with at least one edge without a vertical side, because although you can maneuver the paper over a ridge, hot cookies will likely break as they pass over it.
So that's what the saleswoman said - but so what? I don't mind taking them off the pan one at a time, I'm not in that big a hurry! But after struggling with the spatula-loving cookie syndrome last night and tonight and breaking four cookies in a row a few minutes ago trying to get them off the spatula onto the cooling rack, I have determined to use parchment paper at every sensible opportunity. Waiting longer for them to cool on the pan is the other option, but I don't like it. :-)
Ahh, but wait! Hmm, if the idea is to slide the cookies off the tray baking sheet onto cooling racks all at once, that means having pretty big cooling racks, doesn't it? As big as the pan is! My cooling racks aren't nearly as big as my baking sheets. Dang! Sounds difficult. A good reason to have big cooling racks? Or maybe to be patient waiting for cookies to cool before removing the from the sheet. Dang!
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