Wait, do you really have to grease parchment paper?
It’s not overkill, we promise.
Sometimes a recipe will tell you to grease the baking pan, line it with parchment paper, and then grease that parchment, too. Having spent a few years answering calls on our Baker’s Hotline, I can attest that “Do I really have to do this?” is a very common question. And I get it: greasing your parchment certainly seems like overkill. But having since spent several years developing recipes in our Test Kitchen, I can confirm that if a recipe advises doing this, it’s worth the extra effort. Let me explain.
In these instances, there’s a good chance the parchment is later used to lift the baked good out of the pan once baked, like a sling. However, parchment slings tend to move around when pouring batter or pressing a crumb crust into a pan. If you don’t have binder clips or an extra set of hands to hold the parchment, greasing before placing your sling in the pan secures it in place. And as for the second spray: Greasing the parchment provides that extra little bit of insurance that you’ll be able to remove the parchment from your baked good without compromising it. After the time and care you put into your bake, the last thing you want is to see part of it stuck to the parchment or inside the pan.
In Big and Bubbly Focaccia, our 2025 Recipe of the Year, we call for this exact technique to ensure success. First you grease the bottom and side of the pan, then you add a 3"-wide strip of parchment across the pan’s center, and finally, you grease the parchment. The parchment is used to help get the partially baked focaccia out of the pan so the bread can go back into the oven directly on the lower rack for further browning and crisping. Here, we’re talking about a 475°F metal pan, and you want to be moving as quickly and as dexterously as possible. For the sake of both safety and speed, you don’t want to risk that parchment paper sticking to your focaccia.
Plus, greasing the pan before adding the parchment is not only important for getting the focaccia out of the pan mid-bake. It also facilitates the dough flip that occurs when the risen dough first goes into the pan. This flip coats both sides of the dough in flavorful olive oil, and if the parchment strip inside the pan were not secured by pan spray, you’d risk lifting the parchment along with the dough. In addition to creating a messy tangle of dough and parchment, this would also deflate your dough and seriously impact its rise (and those characteristic big bubbles in the end).
Or take another example: Let’s say you’re baking a layered celebration cake, like our Classic Birthday Cake, where we call for greasing the cake pans, adding parchment rounds, and then greasing those rounds before adding your cake batter. This cake is for a special occasion, and you want a cake that’s not only beautiful, but structurally sound, too. It’s worth the extra few seconds to ensure your layers come out of the pan and don’t stick to the parchment, so you can avoid stacking and frosting a cake that has chunks missing — which not only makes for dubious structural integrity but can also cause unsightly slumps, bulges, or leans in your finished cake.
So, do you really have to grease your pan and then your parchment? For the highest likelihood of success when baking, the answer is most definitely “yes.”
Hate cutting your parchment to fit in cake pans? With these parchment rounds, you don't have to.
Cover photo by John Sherman.
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