5 unexpected ways to use baking paper
Baking paper should be a staple in everyone’s kitchen drawer. And not just because it makes it easy to lift your cake straight out of the tin. Or because you can never be bothered to get out an oven dish and simply place your salmon fillets on baking paper on the baking tray. There are even more useful things you can do with this wonder paper. We’ve listed the best ones for you.
Piping bag
Want beautiful chocolate or icing patterns on your bakes? Fold your paper into the shape of a cone — called a cornet — and fill it with whatever you want to pipe into beautiful shapes.
Filling a mixing bowl
You can easily pour dry ingredients such as flour and baking powder, as well as ground spices, into a mixing bowl using a piece of baking paper. This is especially useful if you use a stand mixer. That way, you can add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the mixer while it’s running. Sift everything onto the paper and fold the ends towards each other to create a tunnel, then pour everything into the bowl.
Baking muffins and cupcakes
Have you bought all the ingredients for those amazing blueberry muffins, only to discover at home that you’ve run out of muffin cases? Cut squares from the baking paper and press them into a greased muffin tin, fill with batter and bake. It also looks very hipster.
Making a cartouche
A carta-what? A cartouche is a circle of baking paper with a hole in the middle, which you place on sauces to prevent a skin from forming. Or on ingredients that you are poaching, to keep them submerged in the liquid. Sounds complicated, but it’s actually very easy. Here’s how to make a cartouche.
Steaming
En papillotte is a cooking technique in which you fold ingredients in baking paper and steam them with herbs and a little liquid inside. It is often used for fish and, because no fat is involved, it’s healthy too. But most importantly, the food stays wonderfully juicy because all the moisture remains safely inside the baking paper.
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