Silicone baking mats ruin your cookies
Do you also have one of those handy silicone baking mats? Handy, because your cookies don’t stick to it and you can simply put it in the dishwasher after use. But wait: the cookie-baking expert at Serious Eats conducted a test and discovered that the baking mat causes your cookies to fail spectacularly.
Do your cookies spread too much when you bake them? Do they brown unevenly? Or do they develop chewy brown edges? There’s a good chance it’s because you’re baking on a silicone baking mat. Stella Parks, an editor at Serious Eats, tested it and discovered major differences between the cookies she baked on parchment paper and the cookies baked on a silicone mat.
Silicone baking mats ruin your cookies
The cookies baked on the mat were browner and chewier, spread more and baked unevenly. Worse still: they also tasted less delicious; they were a little too brown and therefore bitter. They also seemed somewhat greasier because of the uneven baking and greater spreading. Maybe you’re thinking now: Stella simply isn’t very good at baking; her cookies were just in the oven too long.
No, she approached it in a thoroughly scientific way. She made a substantial amount of cookie dough and baked two batches: one part on parchment paper and one part on silicone. Same dough, same oven, same oven setting and same baking time. Completely comparable, right?
Get rid of that mat
Stella’s tip: if your cookies fail and it’s not the baking powder, butter, weighing or any of the other things that can go wrong when baking – then the baking mat might well be to blame. Get rid of that thing.
Also read:
- How to make crispy cookies every time
- Addicted after three bites: bake these cookies today
- How to make homemade cookies even more delicious
Source: Serious Eats
