Do You Need to Grease or Spray Parchment Paper?

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Parchment paper has revolutionized the baking world.

If you’ve never baked with parchment paper, you might be rolling your eyes and wondering how a thin brown paper can be so amazing as to gain such a title but trust us. Parchment paper will open your eyes to a whole new love of baking.

You can use parchment paper on cookie sheets, cake tins, and even pie dishes. Now that we’ve got our parchment paper praises out of the way, there are still some questions about the topic.

One of the most commonly asked questions is: do you need to grease or spray parchment paper?

Some bakers say absolutely not, and others swear by greasing the parchment paper before using it. Below we’ll look at both sides and try to determine whether greasing the paper is best for you or not.

Not Greasing Parchment Paper

The majority rules that you do not need to grease the parchment paper when using it for baking. This is because the parchment paper is coated with a thin layer of silicone, creating a non-stick base for your baked goods.

For this reason, you can safely use parchment paper without any grease at all.

In fact, if you use grease on parchment paper, you might find that your cake or cookies come out of the oven with a greasy texture. This is far from desirable, so make sure you don’t over-grease the paper if you plan on doing so.

Parchment paper allows you to cook almost anything without worrying about losing half of the sweet treat thanks to it sticking to the pan. Simply cut it to size, add it to the pan, and cover it in the baking mixture.

Once the cooking time is up, you can remove the baked good from the tin and peel the parchment paper right off.

It’s that simple!

Greasing Parchment Paper

You might be wondering why we’re talking about greasing the parchment paper when we’ve just told you it’s unnecessary. Well, there is one use for grease that can be very beneficial during the baking process – an adhesive.

That’s right, a small amount of grease can be added to the parchment paper to ensure it stays in place while you pour the cake mixture into the tin.

This isn’t always necessary, but it often helps to prevent the paper from folding under the weight of the mixture.

If the parchment paper bends or folds once you’ve put the mixture into the cake tin, you’re going to have a very difficult time rectifying it. Moreover, the cake mixture will more than likely find its way underneath the parchment paper and stick to the tin, rendering at least some of the paper useless.

To avoid this, a lot of bakers like to add grease to the tin itself before sticking the cut parchment paper to it.

Once you’ve done so, you can pour the mixture confidently without worrying about the paper failing at its job. This just makes the parchment paper even more impressive.

Types of Grease to Use

There are plenty of types of grease that you can use to attach the parchment paper to the baking tin or sheet that you’re using.

One tip that we have is to make sure that your grease is liquified before you get started. This will ensure that you get even coverage without having to waste too much grease.

Let’s go through the most commonly used types of grease.

Butter

Butter is a very popular type of grease as it’s inexpensive, and a little goes a long way. You can either use butter melted or not by adding a little dot of butter around the edges of the tin.

Since you’re only using the butter as an adhesive, you don’t need to be that precise.

Shortening

Shortening is the umbrella term used to describe a type of fat that’s used in baking and resides in a solid form. Lard, vegetable oils, and margarine are considered shortening.

Shortening is cheaper and lasts longer than butter, and many people actually make their own shortening to lower the cost even more.

Oil

Everyone is bound to have some form of oil hanging around their home, and you only need a splash to stick the parchment paper to the baking tin successfully.

Oil can also come in spray bottles as well, which is a very quick method of spraying the pan before adding the parchment paper.

How to Cut Parchment Paper

Parchment paper is only effective if you cut it to shape properly. Unfortunately, stuffing the paper in the tin and hoping for the best is only going to result in dents and visible creases in your sweet treats, so it’s important that you know how to cut the parchment paper.

Baking tins come in all shapes and sizes, depending on the shape that you want the end result to be. The first thing to do is cut out the correct shape to cover the entire bottom of the tin.

Lay your parchment paper out on a flat surface and place the tin over the top. Use an edible marker to draw a rough outline of the bottom surface.

Remove the baking tin and cut this shape out. You want to make sure that the lines are as straight as possible and fit the entire bottom of the pan.

Next, cut out a long rectangular piece of parchment paper to cover all of the sides. If you need to, you can cut separate pieces for the sides, but keeping it as only one long piece will prevent the corners from becoming warped in the cooking process.

Take note that the above method is for baking tins that have perfectly vertical sides.

If your baking tin has angled sides, you might find it easier to take the bottom piece of paper before cutting it out and adding some tabs to tuck behind the edge pieces.

This will ensure that the paper remains together and no mixture slips between the cracks.

Do You Spray Pan Before Or After Parchment Paper?

You can spray the pan before lining it with parchment paper. But why?

As I’ve mentioned earlier, the grease will act as an adhesive so your parchment paper will stay in place.

Do You Grease Under Or Over Parchment Paper?

Have you ever had a time when you lined your pan with parchment paper, but it moved when you poured the batter? Then, the batter ended up oozing between the parchment paper and the pan! Ugh. 😣

This is why the best baking practice is to grease under the parchment paper, or to be more exact, spray the bottom and sides of the pan before lining it with parchment paper.

Some also recommend greasing the top of the parchment paper, but this is usually unnecessary since parchment is already non-stick.

How To Line A Round Cake Pan With Parchment Paper

Nothing is more frustrating than baking a perfectly round cake only for it to stick to the pan and get torn apart.

If you often make round cakes, I think it would make sense to just stock up on parchment paper rounds. However, the drawback to this is you need to have different sizes to bake 6-inch, 8-inch, or 9-inch cakes.

For my practical peeps, you can just cut rounds from your roll of parchment paper. Just measure out how much you’ll need according to the pans you’ll use.

Then, trace your round cake pan on the parchment paper with a pencil. Cut the circle inside the pencil marking, and voila!

All you need is to grease your round cake pan lightly, then press your DIY parchment round to the bottom of the pan. 😉

How To Line A Square Baking Pan With Parchment Paper

If your baked treats always leak in a square baking pan, here’s a trick you can do using parchment paper.

Lay your parchment paper over a flat surface and put the square baking pan in the center of it. Mark all corners of the pan with a pencil, then remove the pan.

From each corner of the parchment paper, cut diagonally until you reach the marks. The cuts should be far enough to account for the thickness of the pan.

Fold each side piece from the end of one cut to the other. Then on the short sides, fold the triangles in to reach each other, creating a 90-degree angle with the previous folds.

Finally, cut off the corner triangles on the longer sides to end up with straight edges.

All you need to do is place the parchment paper into your square pan. Tuck the folded triangles behind the straight edges, then crease these edges so the parchment paper won’t fold into itself.

How To Line A Rectangular Baking Pan With Parchment Paper

Using parchment paper when baking a loaf will keep it from sticking to the pan. However, you can also line the rectangular pan in a way that will make it easier for you to lift out your baked loaf!

Start by greasing the pan. Then, cut your parchment so it’s as long as the long edge of the bottom of the pan.

Press the paper flat to the bottom of the pan.

Crease the overhanging paper on each side of the pan and make sure the parchment is flat on the bottom and sides of the pan.

Cut the overhang on each side of the pan to two inches, so you can use them as handles when lifting out the loaf. Isn’t parchment the best paper for baking?

How To Use Parchment Paper For Cookies And Biscuits

Just line your favorite baking sheet with parchment paper instead of using a cooking spray. The parchment paper is enough to keep the cookie dough from sticking to the sheet pan.

You don’t need to buy silicone baking mats when making a batch of cookies because you can just prepare your pans with parchment paper!

How To Use Parchment Paper For Brownies And Bars

When baking brownies and bars on deep pans, you can follow the method above for lining a rectangular pan. What I mean is cutting the parchment paper long enough to line the bottom and sides of the pan with extra paper to become the overhang on the sides.

I recommend letting your brownies cool completely so they’re not as soft, then using the overhang as handles to lift them out.

How To Use Parchment Paper For Cakes

Trace the outline of your cake pan with a pencil on your parchment paper sheets, depending on how many you’ll need if making a layer cake.

And to keep your parchment round from moving when you pour the batter, don’t forget to grease the pan before lining it.

Is There A Right And Wrong Side To Parchment Paper?

There is no right or wrong side when using parchment paper! Isn’t this neat?

The rolls and sheets from most brands of parchment paper are double-sided, and it won’t matter which surface of parchment paper you use.

Final Thoughts: Do You Need to Grease or Spray Parchment Paper?

So do you need to grease or spray parchment paper?

Not really! You don’t need to grease parchment paper because this type of paper is already coated with silicone, and your baked goods will not stick to it. 

BUT…

You can grease the pan before lining it with parchment paper. The grease will act as an adhesive, preventing the parchment paper from moving. 😉