What’s the Best Baking Surface for Cookies?

Tip

When I bake a new cookie recipe for the first time, I like to test various baking surfaces to see which one produces the best results.  

Example

Here's an example of two cookies that were made from the same recipe and baked side-by-side, on the same sheet pan, at the same temperature, for the same length of time.  One was baked on parchment paper and the other on a Silpat liner.

In some cases, the finished cookies bake nearly identically, but in this particular case, the cookie baked on the silpat was the clear winner.  Actually, cookies baked on silpat liners almost always win.

Another Example

And here's another example - the differences are more subtle here than with the chocolate cookies above, but there are differences.  I'll post larger photos so you can see them better. 

Cookie tops - the ones baked on a Silpat have a much nicer appearance.   The ones baked on parchment are lumpy and seem to have developed a few air holes that broke through the surface.

Cookie bottoms - again, the ones baked on a Silpat look so much better.  The ones baked on parchment have wrinkled and unevenly browned bottoms, and you can see where those air holes started - weird.

Last Example

And here's a different cookie recipe with more dramatic results - as you can see, the cookie baked on parchment stuck so badly that it broke when I tried to pull it from the paper, but the cookie that was baked on a sipat liner released perfectly. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, most of the time I prefer the results cookies baked on silpat liners. With that said, I love parchment paper for all kinds of reasons and I always keep an ample supply on hand. Happy baking!