How To Clean Your Cookie Sheets

If you love to bake, you probably use your cookie sheets quite often. And if you are an avid cook, you probably use them for more than just cookies. One day you’ll look and find that the sheets that were so shiny when brand new are now marred in black or stick gook. Do you have to throw them out? No way! You can clean them with a little ingenuity.

First, if your pan is non stick, you can try soaking it in warm water and dish detergent. But most likely you have already tried that. You can use Dawn Power Dissolver or another heavy duty dish cleaner. Look in the dish detergent aisle for a dissolving cleaner you can soak your pans in.

Don’t try using steel wool or any Brillo type product. You’ll ruin the finish of the non stick coating. But even if you can’t get that goo that’s left from cooking spray that got overheated, you don’t have to throw your expensive pan out. You can still use it even if it’s not as pretty as it once was. It won’t affect the taste or baking of your gourmet cookies.

Now, if you have aluminum pans, that’s a different story. You can attack them with oven cleaner. Because aluminum pans are often used to bake other savory foods and not just cookies, you may have ended up with burnt on, crusty edges or blackness from carbon burning. You have two options. One is to spray the pans with oven cleaner. Let them sit for half an hour in the sink. Then, using rubber gloves, go ahead and wipe the residue off with a damp sponge. All the black stains should come right off. If they don’t, you can spray them again and leave them to sit a little longer. You won’t hurt the pans by letting them sit with the spray on them.

You might think that your choices are limited, however your other option for aluminum cookie sheet stains is to put them in your oven, without any food in it, and turn the oven to its self clean cycle.

The door will lock and for the next few hours your oven will perform its own high temperature self clean.

When it’s done and the door unlocks, your pans will come out clean and looking like new.

You will still need to wash them in soap and water to get the rest of the residue off, however you will have a brand new looking set of cookie sheets!

One thing you should be aware of is that you should never use products not designed for food use on a baking sheet. Don’t run out to the garage and grab a grease or grime removal product that’s designed for cars or engines. It might be tempting because the bottle says it can take off any stain, but it’s not safe to then use the pans for food. They’ll be clean, but you won’t be able to use them anymore.

Remember, just because a pan has a few stains on it doesn’t mean you have to throw it out. A carbonized black residue will look ugly, but once your cookies are done, who cares? Just store it away where you don’t have to look at it. It would be a shame to have to get rid of good quality cookie sheets because of a few unsightly stains.

Try all the things mentioned here, and your pans should look great for years.