There are few kitchen tasks as deceptively tricky as lining a baking pan with parchment paper. Whether you typically try to cut it down to the perfect size, just smoosh it in, crumple it up, or create a sling, it can be annoying or even downright frustrating!
In the video, Gao shows his go-to method by lining his own square baking pan. He starts by measuring and tearing out a piece of parchment a few inches longer than the length of your pan. If you’re working with a square pan, “all you have to do is cut your parchment into a square,” he says. Next, he places the pan directly in the center of the parchment and makes a diagonal cut from each corner of the pan to each corner of the parchment.
Once all of the corners are cut, he simply lays the parchment into the baking pan and because of the cuts, the parchment easily overlaps in the corners. To be totally honest, it’s a little trick to describe with just words, but after watching the video once or twice, you’ll see how brilliant and simple it is.
The simple trick blew people’s minds, and they raced to the comments to share their thoughts.
“What a hack, don’t know why I’ve never done it like this before, thanks!” wrote one commenter. “Nice to see someone doing it properly so it doesn’t make the cake look rough and untidy,” another chimed in. “You mean this whole time I was needlessly suffering? I will start using this method 🥹” added a third.
The next time you bake a load of banana bread or brownies, it’s worth giving Gao’s method a try!