What’s the difference between parchment and waxed paper?
Oh there’s quite a lot of difference. Wax paper is basically tissue paper with a wax coating on the outside, nowhere near as tough and useful as parchment. Parchment is thick (or at any rate thick-er) paper that’s been passed through an acid bath to increase its rigidity and give it a hard, smooth, glossy surface that resists just about everything. Most of the time parchment is also coated with silicone to give it extra stick-resistance.
The result is an all-purpose ktichen paper that stays strong, even when it’s wet or covered with grease, and that won’t melt or catch fire, even in a very hot oven. In short it does everything wax paper can do, only better. It is, how do you say in your country…indispensable.
Another difference is about $5 per roll!
You can reuse parchment paper. If it gets really coatedbor greasy you can toss it, but I’ve used a couple parchment sheets for several batches of cookies
Good point, Deb!
Thanks.
– Joe
Amen, Chana! Forgot that. Hehe…
– Joe
Heck with the paper – what is that fabulous item in the picture?
That is a “pear in a cage” Roger! You can find those under “Pastry” in the menus on the left!
Cheerio,
– Joe
I had no idea there was a difference until I tried making caramels. I poured the hot caramel onto a wax paper-lined baking sheet. The wax melted into the candy and the whole batch was ruined. When I re-tried the recipe using parchment paper, I had no problem.
Eeek! Yeah I’ve seen that happen as well…not pretty!
Thanks, Nicole!
– Joe