— Erica McAdams

So I have several different things that work for me, and I would share that even before I was a student at Rouxbe 10 years ago, I wanted to make sure that I could transition any favorite food into being plant-based without oil and having it work for me. So I'm gonna share a couple of very quick tips that have worked for me over the years. And I know that there are many debates about, um, using silicone, but I will put one thing to end is that I happen to have this lovely round silicone pan, and I like to put these air fryer liners on the inside. You do wanna make sure that when you're using parchment paper that your preference is the brown parchment paper because it hasn't been bleached. And I believe from what I have learned is that there may be particles of silicone balls in the white parchment paper. So brown parchment paper. Um, I have a variety of different kinds of pans because I like to bake. What I would do here is I would cut out, I would trace this on, oops, I would trace this on, um, some parchment paper and then line the bottom of it with parchment paper. And that works very, very well. The other thing that you can use is, uh, this is a silicone pan. Uh, there are two of them in this pack. They work really, really well. There are many different kinds of brands. You can go to a store like, um, oh, let's see, William Sonoma, for example, or, and look at them in person or just use parchment paper. And you know, Ann Leston reuses her parchment paper. She will flip it over and then use the side that has not had food on it. So parchment paper, silicone lining your pans well, I think is a very important thing. And I do wanna show you one last thing to sort of answer your question even more fully. So here I have a spring form pan. Okay. And, uh, I made a, I was testing a recipe that I invented in my head last night, and I happened to be a big fan of kabocha squash. To me it tastes like chestnuts and it has a very nice texture and a very rich flavor. And I bake it in the oven hole like this. And then when it's done, I take it outta the oven, cut it in half, remove the seeds, and then I will scoop out the insides of it. So here is a cheesecake, a pumpkin cheesecake, or a should say kobocha squash cheesecake that I made with it. So first I have this spring foam pan, and when you're cooking with spring foam pans, you always wanna make sure that it's not too big because what'll happen is that you'll make something that's really, really beautiful and in your head it's going to be two or three or four inches high and it comes out looking sort of like a, a tortilla or something like that. So I just wanna show you this. So here's the pie, and then watch how easily the parchment paper just peels away. So this is my number one recommendation, and maybe later I'll send a piece to Patrick. And, uh, I love the texture of it. It feels nice to me. It feels like a cheesecake. So parchment paper is the best way to go. You don't need to have any spray oils or anything like that, so I don't, okay, there we go.