Parchment paper is an endlessly useful companion in the kitchen. You can use it to line cake pans and baking trays, cook food in parchment-paper parcels and even turn it into a piping bag in a pinch.
Choosing the right-sized Parchment Paper for the job
If you’re keen to level up your cast-iron cooking with the help of parchment paper, getting a good fit is important, and it’s not always intuitive.
For example, if you’re cooking with a 10-inch skillet, a 9-inch pre-cut parchment paper round is going to be best — with or without easy-lift tabs. This is because the base of the skillet is actually slightly smaller than the 10-inch wide top. You’ll notice this if you ever need to measure your cake pans too.
For Dutch ovens, it depends on which size you’re cooking with. For a 5.5-quart Dutch oven, a 9-inch pre-cut round, easy-lift round or a half-sheet parchment paper rectangle is perfect. The smaller 3.5-quart Dutch oven works best with the 8-inch parchment paper round or a quarter-sheet rectangle.
Cast-iron cookware is so well designed that it’s remained largely unchanged for decades. Perhaps the only thing that can compete with it is your other kitchen staple: Trusty parchment paper. When you bring these two together, it’s no surprise that delicious things happen.
