Reuse Your Parchment Paper With This TikTok Hack

16.07.2024 - 13:03 / bhg.com / Sharon Greenthal

BHG/Andrea Araiza

If you’re a baker, you know that the cost of baking ingredients has spiked, from butter to chocolate to flour. It won’t come as a surprise that even parchment paper, a favorite tool for both professional and at-home bakers, is expensive. A package of 125 single-use sheets is going for around $20, which can quickly add up if you’re baking big batches ofholiday cookies or multiple loaves of banana bread. But there’s a way to cut down on the cost of this baking staple.

A TikTok video from America's Test Kitchen explains that parchment paper can be reused as long as it isn't too messy or hasn't been in an oven at over 425°. If the oven has been over that temperature, the parchment paper will be too brittle for another baking project—though you can reuse it for catching potato peels or other food scraps. And you can reuse the parchment paper more than once.

«In fact, you can make at least five batches of cookies on a single sheet of parchment with no sticking,» the video's presenter instructs. «Just be sure to use a cooled baking sheet every time.» 

If you're short on storage space, one commenter on the video had a helpful suggestion. «I leave it on my cookie sheet when I store it away,» they said. Be careful to wipe it off before putting it away in your cabinet.

Reusing parchment paper isn’t only good for your budget—it’s good for the planet, too. Parchment paper is effective at keeping baked goods from sticking to the surface of the pan it is cooking on. This is because it’s coated with a non-stick substance, usually silicone, which isn’t recyclable, which means parchment paper ends up in landfills. 

Baking and biscuit expert Chadwick Boyd told Reynolds Kitchens, a manufacturer of parchment paper, “I try to