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(Credit:
Pastry Chef)
The Decorating Bag Holder provides a way to keep your frosting off the counter and even organize it for easy use. The stand is plastic, with metal legs that can fold in when you're not using it. It has two large spaces for holding large pastry bags, six medium spaces for holding disposable or smaller bags, and six small spaces for holding flower nails. It measures 11 1/2 inches by 7 1/8 inches by 4 5/8 inches.
The Decorating Bag Holder, which sells for $9.99, isn't a necessity for decorating cakes and cookies, but it can be useful if you are making a habit of mixing up frosting. If you're using more than one bag, it's not unusual to wind up with smudges of frosting all over the place and a holder can help you avoid that situation. It's also useful if you like making pastries at home.
Bundt cakes, as a rule, aren't particularly fancy. With the right pan, though, you can make your cake a little fancier. The Aloha Bundt Cake Pan is perfect if you're looking for a tropical feel. The pan's design shapes your cake to look like six small pineapples that form a ring. You don't even need to frost it to get a great look. Unlike many pans that mold details into a baking cake, the design on this pan is not so delicate that you won't be able to get the cake out of the pan when you're ready to eat. And if you're planning to entertain, the pineapple design as an extra meaning: the pineapple has been considered a symbol of hospitality since colonial days.
The Aloha Bundt Cake Pan comes from Nordic Ware and meets its maker's reputation for solid bakeware. It is made from heavy-duty cast aluminum, with a nonstick finish. The finish does mean that the pan should be washed by hand, but cleanup is generally easy. If you're not in the mood for cake, the pan works equally well as a mold for gelatin or ice cream. The Aloha Bundt Cake Pan is priced at $28.66.
Cupcakes are fun to decorate and fun to eat. But occasionally, you have to bake a bigger cake. The Dimensions Giant Cupcake Pan from Wilton gives you the option of baking a giant cupcake, and sticking with the fun of decorating and eating a cupcake in larger sizes. The pan actually bakes the cupcake in two pieces--the top and the base--which you'll be able to assemble after backing. To put the pieces together, you'll need to spread a thin layer of icing so that the top and the bottom hold together. The fully constructed cake will stand about 8 inches tall, not counting any frosting or decorations you choose to add. There are quite a few different options when it comes to decorations, too. While you can stick with a traditional cupcake design, Wilton offers a whole online list of decorating ideas for this pan.
The Dimensions Giant Cupcake Pan is made from cast aluminum, is professional quality, and has a lifetime warranty. The pan has a nonstick surface that makes releasing your finished cakes simple, and it also makes clean up go a lot faster. The pan holds 10 cups of batter, and measures 15.5 inches by 8.24 inches by 3.75 inches. The Dimensions Giant Cupcake Pan costs $30.99.
I'm notorious for getting frosting just about everywhere when I start decorating cookies and cakes. A lot of that mess can be attributed to the tools I use, but an upgrade to Kuhn Rikon's Squeezable Decorating Kit seems like a simple solution. The kit includes decorating bottles that let you place frosting exactly where you want it without having to manage a big bag full of the sweet stuff. With the included decorating tips, your decorating job will be just as attractive as it might have been with a bag. The bottles provide a much better level of control, and they can even be used to store frosting between decorating sessions. The different sizes of bottles offer an added level of control, due to their different shapes. Using the bottles is a simple matter: you mix up the frosting recipe of your choice, add coloring and scoop it into the bottles.
The Squeezable Decorating Kit comes with two tall decorating bottles, three short decorating bottles, a frosting spatula, and five interchangeable decorating tips (ribbon, leaf, star, basketweave, and round). The bottles are plastic, while the decorating tips are steel. Each item should be washed by hand. The full kit is available for $20.
Making a cake with multiple tiers isn't too hard, as long as you can start with a large enough base. But if you want to bake a small multi-tier cake, you may find yourself carving down larger cakes in the process. With the Multi-Tier Cake Pan, however, you can turn out small cakes with three tiers and none of the work. The pan bakes all three tiers as one cake, eliminating the need to construct the cake and only leaving you with the task of frosting.
The Multi-Tier Cake Pan can turn out four cakes at a time, each of which has a 4-inch diameter at the base and stands 4 inches tall. You can use the pan with a wide variety of cake recipes, but it does come with a recipe and instructions. With larger cakes, the weight of each tier can be an issue, but the cakes produced by the Multi-Tier Cake Pan are small enough that weight is not an issue with most recipes. The pan is nonstick, which is a necessity for getting the tiers out intact, though a little nonstick baking spray wouldn't go amiss either. It also is dishwasher safe. The pan is priced at $32.95.
Cake pops have become a popular cake-decorating project recently: you form a ball from cake scraps around a stick and then decorate with frosting and sprinkles. Preparing the cake pops for decorating can be the hardest part of the project, but the Brownie Pop Mold offers you a short cut. With the mold, brownies hold together better during the decorating process, making them an ideal base. Because of their consistency, you can bake brownies in a shape perfect for making a brownie pop. With cake, you must shape a pop after the cake has been baked.
The Brownie Pop Mold turns out brownie pops that are about 1.75 inch by 1.75 inch--perfectly bit sized. While the pan holds eight brownie pops at a time, the directions suggest that you can make 24 brownie pops out of one box mix. The Brownie Pop Mold is a silicone pan and is dishwasher safe. You will need to spray the pan with nonstick baking spray before use it: you'll be able to flip the pan over and gently push out each cake pop that way. From there, you can insert a stick into the brownie pop. The pops can be decorated in essentially the same way as a cake pop. The Brownie Pop Mold is available from Amazon for $10.99.
Over the past couple of years, I've seen several reconstructions of small treats, remade much larger. I've seen a peanut butter cup the size of a pie and a Twinkie that could serve eight. Williams-Sonoma has made recreating sandwich cookies much easier with the Sandwich-Cookie Cake Pan. The classic cookie is, of course, an Oreo--with the cake pan, you can create a chocolate cake and vanilla cream combo that matches. Just as easily, though, you can combine any other cake and cream flavors to make your own cookie. The cake pans (each set contains two) turn out cakes decorated with the word cookie, along with ridges and decorations. Making a cookie is as simple as laying down one cake, spreading a layer of cream and placing the second cake on top. Considering that many of the other attempts to translate sandwich cookies into cake form involved carving the cake by hand, I think the Sandwich-Cookie Cake Pan is a great idea.
The Sandwich-Cookie Cake Pan is cast aluminum and spreads heat evenly. It has Williams-Sonoma's exclusive Goldtouch coating, which ensures the cake does not stick to the pan and makes clean up simple. The coating is ceramic-reinforced, so you can only wash it by hand. The pan is 9 inches in diameter. The Sandwich-Cookie Cake Pan is priced at $29.95, for the set of two.
It's cool in here.
(Credit: Kitchen Krafts)Ah, the sun. Warm, friendly, and inviting; when a sunny day beams down upon us, we celebrate by flocking in droves to parks and beaches. No matter if you gravitate toward green grass or sandy shores, warm days always go better with food. Consider a picnic spread: fried chicken, salads, maybe some grill action going on. And then there is dessert. A nice big piece of cake...with melted icing. No longer must this scenario unfold in parks and coastlines across the land. If you're out enjoying the sun and need to keep your consumables cold, check out the ThermaWare Cool & Carry.
With a 13.75-inch diameter base and 6.5 inches of headroom, the carrier set is perfect for keeping cakes and pies cool and refreshing. Neatly concealed underneath the serving platter is a four-section base that includes four freezable gel packs. The plate snaps shut over the top, providing an attractive display. Locking handles complete the system, and the whole set serves as an excellent transportation device.
As much as we enjoy food with our outdoor fun, sometimes the actual eating has to wait. While you are out there having fun in the sun, rest assured, your delicious creation will be there waiting for you. Assuming, of course, that you remembered to bring it among all the other accessories that a sunny day seems to uncover. It seems as if there is always one thing that gets forgotten. At least if you leave this on the kitchen counter, you know it will still be good when you get back.
When my family has cake, slicing it can turn into a production. My mother just wants a sliver. My cousin was the biggest slice he can talk me out of. And I just want a medium slice. The S-XL Bundt Cake Mold makes cutting all those different sizes of slices much easier. The cake pan has grooves that translate into different cake slices, making cutting the cake just a matter of lining up your knife with the lines on the top of the cake. It lays out a variety of slices, so that you can portion out pieces that will please both the folks who want thin slices and those who want extra-large pieces.
The S-XL Bundt Cake Mold is about the same size as a standard 9-inch Bundt or tube pan, with a capacity of 10 cups--which means it will hold most Bundt cake recipes. The pan is silicone and nonstick, so removing your Bundt cake should be easy. The pan is also very sturdy, especially in comparison to many of the other silicone pans on the market. Handling your cake shouldn't damage the cake. It's priced at $32--and there's a standard cake pan version also available.
In my family, carrot cake is a sign spring is coming. I don't know what it is about February and March, but something about those months just has me reaching for the carrots and the cream-cheese frosting every year. The Carrot Cake Pan from King Arthur Flour offers a nice touch to my typical carrot cake. The glazed stoneware pan is perfect for baking a moist cake--and you can pop the cake out easily if you're planning to decorate it. However, just adding a coat of cream-cheese frosting on the cake and leaving it in the pan can make for an elegant serving option: since the pan is shaped like a carrot, it makes for a fun touch for your table.
The Carrot Cake Pan was designed to work with existing recipes. It works equally well with recipes calling for an 8-inch square or round pan, and can even work for a recipe calling for a 9-inch round pan if need be. The makers note that the 11-inch by 6.5-inch pan can hold 5.75 cups of liquid and suggest that it would be a good fit for carrot gelatin salad and other carrot-based dishes. The Carrot Cake Pan is not only oven-safe: it is also dishwasher-safe and be used in both the microwave and the freezer.
