I have a question for our cake decorators. I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics, ETC and looked at what they charged for a roll of parchment paper. OUCH! Can I use waxed paper instead of paying the big price for parchment paper? Thank you for your answers!
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I am not a cake decorator so I will leave that part up to someone else to answer.
But have I have seen parchment paper at the dollar stores. Joann's prob has a higher price than even a grocery store...unless you use one of their coupons. Ask if they have an extra ad for you to use until you can sign up to their mailing list for the coupons.
Or if you live in a city with a restaurant supply store you might check there but it would probably a huge roll.
You can purchase parchment paper at Wal-Mart for around $2.00 a roll. It is not the same as wax paper. Wax paper will melt in your oven.
NOT IN THE OVEN! It depends on what you want to do with the paper if it can be substituted. The beauty of parchment is that you can line cookie sheets or cake pans with it for baking.
Actually, waxed paper can be cut to fit the inside bottoms of cake pans. When I was growing up we didn't grease and flour the pans, we used wax paper in the bottom of the pans. Place the pan on the wax paper, mark around the bottom and cut with scissors. Place in the bottom of the pan and fill with cake batter. Just peel the paper off when the cake is taken out of the oven and turned upside down.
Interesting about people thinking it would burn, in all the years we used it, never burned once!
Also, if you are using it somehow to decorate a cake by rolling it as a funnel and adding a tip inside, it won't hold up. Wax paper will get soft and it just isn't as stiff as parchment paper.
No, I'm afraid you can't. Wax paper will burn in the oven. Try a grocery store instead of Joann's for parchment paper. Most any big grocery store should have it, and it will likely be cheaper there too. Or you can order it online in bulk at: www.thebakerscatalogue.com, or www.KingArthurFlour.com.
Hope these help!
P.S. Whoops, pays to read carefully, doesn't it? You are wanting to know for *cake-decorating purposes*. Well, for that as well, only parchment paper will work. It is stiffer than wax paper, which eventually gets soft and squishy--not what you want when practicing cake decorating! Parchment will hold up for many, many times of use, on the other hand.
If you are using the wax paper to practice "cake decorating" techniques, then it'll work fine, but would need to be replaced more frequently. If you are using it to go under the bottom of your cake to keep frosting or icing off the cake plate, then it will work perfectly.
If you are using wax paper to line cake pans, just grease and flour the cake pan first, lay in the exact size wax paper cut to fit, then grease and flour it as well and it works just as well as parchment paper does...but so does the brown paper from large paper grocery bags...just be sure to use only the parts of the bag which are print-free, and do grease and flour the pan first, then lay in the exact size of brown paper, cut to fit the pan, and grease and flour it as well.
The brown paper was traditionally used 50-60 years ago to line pans when the wonderful old-fashioned fruitcakes were made at home, then stored for long periods of time with frequent "doses" of an alcoholic spirit added to preserve the cake and make it even better. The brown paper would hold up perfectly for at least a year...from one Thanksgiving to the next. This is the way I still make my fruitcakes. I make them the week before Thanksgiving...and begin cutting them the following Thanksgiving. They are nothing like the commercial fruitcakes at all.
When baking cookies, Parchment paper is so handy to use. You just load a sheet of paper cut to fit your cookie sheet, load the parchment lined cookie sheet, and set the pan in the oven to bake. While they're baking, fill up another sheet of parchment paper ready to go on the pan after pulling off the sheet with the baked cookies onto wire racks to cool. It speeds up cookie baking a lot, and can be used more than once during your cookie-baking day.
I hope this helps. Julia in Orlando, FL
This brought back so many memories. My mother also used wax paper to line her cake pans. She did it for sheet cakes and any tube pan cake she baked. I remember cutting the circles for her. She always baked from scratch and called them her "puddins".
I went to Dollar Tree Store and a large chain grocery store. Dollar Tree or the grocery store didn't have parchment paper in stock.
I don't need parchment paper right now, but will keep my eyes open for it.
Thank you everyone for all of your helpful feeback to my inquiry.
Marge from NY
You can use wax paper to line cake pans. Just lay the waxed paper out and set the cake pan on top of it, mark around the pan and cut the paper out. Then put it inside the pan, grease the waxed paper and sides of pan. When cake is done, just remove from pan and peel back the waxed paper and toss.
You can get a free sample of Reynold's parchment paper here. Dont know how big it is but may tide you over until you can find some.
www.alcoa.com/
Reynolds is the brand most grocery stores here sell for parchment and it appears to be less expensive than Wilton's. Most grocery stores nowadays will put in an order for something at their store that you aren't finding.
I buy my parchment paper at the Dollar Tree store.
I buy my parchment from Costco. A huge box lasts me several years! I bake cookies and use parchment over and over again by washing it, then drying each sheet once I'm done baking my cookies. I have a recipe for Italian finger cookies that you can fit nearly 80 piped cookies onto one sheet of parchment paper. For help in making each cookie the same size, I've marked the back of the parchment paper to the correct length and mark off the distance between each cookie using a sharpie marker (again, the mark is on the reverse side of the paper, yet is visible, and the marker does not make cookie taste funny). I've washed the same set of marked parchment paper for about a year now and I make these cookies every few weeks, so they get a lot of use!
If you're going to decorate a cake using parchment paper, it will always hold up under pressure better than waxed paper. You can make small or large cone shaped bags easily, then you can pop in a decorating tip of your choice and then fill the cone with butter cream frosting or whatever you want to use and that bag will hold up under pressure! (LOL, couldn't resist the pun).
I've had the same $11.99 box of parchment paper for almost five years now and I still have half the box left. The only thing is that the box is so large that I have to keep it in the linen closet in the hallway because it will not fit in my tiny kitchen. I keep my washed and dried parchment sheets in the drawer under my oven right with my cookie sheets. I always write the date, place, and cost of big splurges so that I can really try to make it last as long as possible, plus it's nice to be able to brag a bit to the DH and let him know that I'm on the ball in the budget department! ;-)
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