Choose Your Parchment Paper

1. Select quality, safe parchment paper for baking. Some parchment paper is made with a layer of quilon, which when heated can be toxic due to the presence of chrome. Choose a more environmentally friendly product like If You Care brand parchment paper, which is made of silicone and available at If You Care (see Resources below).

2. Widen your scope of choices of parchment, especially for baking. Parchment paper for baking and refrigerating comes in a variety of forms: sheets, rolls and circles. Pre-cut sheets are handy to use for lining baking sheets in a flash.

3. Count on tried-and-true brands like Reynolds for parchment paper. Their brand was voted best parchment by America's Test Kitchen (a cooking product research and techniques group). For parchment paper products and cookie-making techniques, visit Reynolds Kitchens (see Resources below).

Utilize Parchment Paper in a Variety of Ways

1. Measure your dry cookie batter ingredients onto a piece of parchment paper. Simply add your dry ingredients, such as flour, baking powder and sugar, onto a piece of parchment paper. Measuring ingredients this way ensures accuracy rather than pouring them right into your food processor or bowl.

2. Pour the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. After your baking ingredients are on the paper, fold the parchment in half and pour the contents into your work bowl.

3. Roll your already-mixed cookie dough on parchment paper. Place a sheet of parchment below the dough and a sheet above it. This way, you won't add extra flour into the dough and your rolling pin stays clean--it won't stick and will roll smoother.

4. Bake cookies on parchment paper-lined pans. Make sure you cover the entire length and width of the cookie sheet or pan. Using parchment in this way is a baker's best trick, since the cookies are easy to remove and the pans stay cleaner.

5. Use parchment paper to create icebox cookie dough. After rolling the cookie dough and forming it into a log, position the dough onto a piece of parchment paper and roll it up to seal it. Refrigerate the parchment-wrapped dough until it is cold and firm--unroll the dough and slice according to your recipe's instructions for thickness.