For many, baking paper is one of the things that you buy without paying much attention to the manufacturer or special features. At most, the question of faith, arches versus meter rolls to tear off, makes a difference, many think. “I often just buy it by price,” admits confectioner Anette Then, the tester.
But she also started pondering: Does it have to be real, always to use the single-use paper that you leave in the oven for two or three passes and then throw away? Especially since, attention! Conventional baking paper cannot even be used for recycling. Because it is coated so that it does not become soggy, which is why it does not belong in the waste paper, but in the residual waste.
In addition to the manufacturers who continue to rely on old-school baking paper, there have long been some who are trying to offer more sustainable models: with compostable paper without a coating – or with baking mats made of silicone or fiberglass. Although they are not suitable for bio bins, some can be used for years.
But are they good too? The acid test: Anette Thens shortcrust pastry for the biscuits in Munich’s Café Kustermann. Twelve minutes at 180 degrees convection in the professional oven, the trays of which rotate so that the biscuits are evenly browned. The parchment paper must not be too thick so that the dough turns brown from below. However, thin does not help if the coating is too impermeable to heat. In the end, the biscuits should not only be beautiful, they should also be easy to remove from the baking paper. In the bakery, By the way, Then often uses a kind of greaseproof paper instead of baking paper – at least that’s enough for her to bake cake bases, she says.