I was ignorant to the benefits of parchment paper until fairly recently. Now, I refuse to bake a cookie without a roll of it at hand. I always thought it was something for the fancy bakers to use and frankly, out of my league. Now, I realize anyone that makes a cookie, even the break-and-bake kind, should use it. You can easily tear it to the size of your cookie sheet, place your dough on it, and pop it in the oven. While the cookies are baking, you can get the next batch ready on the parchment paper. Slide the cooked sheet of cookies off onto the table and slide the uncooked ones onto the sheet and back into the oven! You don’t have to mess with a spatula that might misshape your cut-out cookies or cooling racks that are never big enough to hold them all. Just slide them off and on the cookie sheet and you don’t even have to wash them afterward! Over Christmas, the parchment paper serves as a great mess container for decorating sugar cookies. We decorate the cookies right on the paper and then throw it away when the cookies have finished drying. I feel so professional now with my parchment paper at my side!