Parchment Paper History: How We Got Paper Perfect for Baking (2019)

Modern baking parchment is not the same material as historical parchment: the latter is prepared animal skin, while baking paper is plant-fiber paper treated to gain useful properties. A chemical process developed in 1847 used sulfuric acid to transform paper into a durable, parchment-like material. Its usefulness soon extended beyond baking: it could cover preserve jars and wrap butter, helping protect food from air and preserve its flavor. The name reflects the older material it replaced, though modern uses of “parchment” and “vellum” also refer to several kinds of writing paper.

Silicone made baking parchment especially effective as a nonstick aid. Its heat resistance and ability to release cleanly from other materials suited it to baking, and evidence of silicone-treated parchment appears by the 1950s, including in recipes for removing cakes from pans. The paper’s recent prominence in home kitchens is attributed partly to the spread of silicone cookware and to food television, blogs, and celebrity cooks that made baking techniques more visible in the 2000s. The history thus runs from a nineteenth-century paper substitute, through uses in food storage and manufacturing, to a familiar modern kitchen tool whose convenience depends on a later silicone coating.