So I was just called into the kitchen because Erin (our resident “Go-To-Gal” aka: Assistant Extraordinaire) was on task to complete the Gingerbread and Lemon Cookies I worked on last weekend. She was trying to get the perfect cooking time to give the little delights a light crispness with a center that is soft, but not raw—a fine line.
She’d been working on them yesterday, but we knew that after being stored overnight they’d change texture. So we all taste-tested them this morning (poor us—LOL!) and decided that we were close but should split the difference between the trial we loved yesterday and the one that was cooked a few minutes shorter. Erin baked them for the agreed upon time…yet they were still raw. When I walked in the kitchen and tasted them, I was a bit puzzled. They were definitely too raw. Was our oven off? Are the timers playing tricks on us? Erin is usually so precise…
Then it occurred to me: I asked Erin to line the pans with parchment this time since the restaurant we’re developing them for is likely going to want to bake them on their current sheet pans, not newly purchased nonstick ones. As it turns out, the parchment actually altered the cooking time by 5 minutes (requiring 33% more cooking time than our medium-gray, Circulon, nonstick baking sheets) for cookies that are only about 3-inches in diameter. Think about it, on these hot summer days, if you stand on nearly-white sidewalk, your feet can handle it. If you then step on to the black tar driveway, you might burn your feet or at least scurry to get across it quickly. The same thing happens in the oven.
Now while, this is definitely of note to anyone who covers pans with foil or parchment, it’s also a particularly interesting lesson for anyone who tries to “save clean-up” by lining the bottom of their oven with foil. The reflection of the foil in the oven can wildly alter the heat and thus change your cooking times or even make cooking uneven. So if you’re “guilty” and have been wondering why your dishes never seem to match the recipes, it might just be that you’re being foiled! 