Cookina Reusable Parchment Paper

I am a huuuuge fan of parchment paper for lining baking sheets when I'm making cookies. Huge.

But what I'm not a huge fan of is cutting parchment to fit certain pans. Which is a great thing to do if you want to make sure your brownies come out of a pan. But it's just a little too fiddly for me to do unless I know it's absolutely necessary.

The solution to my fiddliness problem is to use reusable "parchment," so I only have to do the fiddly thing once and I can reuse the parchment over and over and over again.

I tested a Cookina baking sheet in my favorite 9-inch square baking pan, cutting it to fit the pan with just a little overhang over the top to make it easy to grab the sheets to pull the baked goods from the pan.

Cutting it was no more difficult that cutting parchment or paper, and fitting it was just a matter of measuring, folding, and cutting along the folded lines. Then I creased the liner where I wanted the folds to be, and slipped it into the pan.

(Note: instructions on the website say you shouldn't crease the paper, but I think that's more important when you want to use it flat - you wouldn't crease it for storage and unfold to use it. But since cutting is safe, it's not like you're going to release demons by folding it to fit a baking pan.)

Easy peasy cutting and folding. And I only had to do that once for multiple uses.

The way I cut mine, all four sides are parchment-lined, but for other types of pans - like bread pans with sloping sides, for example, it might be easier to cut a strip so that the parchment covers the bottom and two sides, while the other two sides are left uncovered.

Or, for something round, like a cake pan, you could cut a circle for the bottom of the pan, because that's where the scary sticking happens, and it's easy enough to run a thin spatula around the outside edge of the pan to make sure that it's loose before you turn it out.

Of course, you can use the Cookina sheet as regular flat parchment for baking whatever it is you bake on baking sheets. But me, I'm more excited about going all origami with them and fitting them into the baking pans I use most often.

For storage, I just fold that cut sheet flat and store it inside the pan. If you keep the Cookina as one big flat sheet, it comes with a metal ring that you can use to keep it neatly rolled up, so you don't need to save the box for storage.

BUT!!! These aren't just for baking baked goods. That sounds weird, but you know what I mean, right? You can use them for other types of oven cooking when you want easier cleanup, like when you're roasting vegetables or baking chicken or fish or whatever.

Who's it for: People who bake sticky things.

Pros: Reusable. Washable. Dishwasher safe (although I doubt I could find a reasonable way to fit this in my dishwasher. So much easier to just wash by hand!)

Cons: While they are reusable, they aren't permanent. Eventually, they would need to be replaced.

Wishes: It would be nice if there was another color option. There might be a time when I use one to bake fish or roast hot peppers, and I might not want to use the same sheet for my delicate sugar cookies. Thus far, they haven't picked up any odors, but I haven't used them for anything very pungent, either. So, just for peace of mind, it might be nice to have different colors for different uses.

Source: I received this from the manufacturer for the purpose of a review.