Why You Shouldn’t Bake Cookies With Aluminum Foil

Own a haggard baking sheet? You, like me, have probably considered adding aluminum foil over top to avoid sticking and general baked-on grossness. Well, turns out, when it comes to cookies, that foil could be causing some problems.

Instead of using aluminum foil to protect your cookies from old pans, you should actually be using parchment paper.

What’s the problem with aluminum foil, though? After all, you can use it when cooking other things in the oven. It all comes down to how it conducts heat. Aluminum foil is conductive which means that the parts of the dough—i.e the bottoms of your cookies—that touch the foil will be exposed to markedly more heat than the other areas. Basically, when you cook cookies atop foil, you end up with an under-cooked top and a crispy, burned bottom. Not exactly delicious, right?

If your sheets have seen better days, parchment paper is the way to go. While foil conducts heat causing it to burn the bottoms of cookies, parchment paper actually helps keep your sheet from scorching your cookies. Plus, if you’ve ever used it before, you likely already know that it has non-stick properties that will make removing your baked good easy.

If have ever burned a cookie on aluminum foil but didn’t know why, it’s time to opt for some parchment paper. But you could always replace your cookie sheet, too.