Cool tools: Baking must-haves

To my dear friends, family members, and readers who don’t bake,

Having the tools in the photo below will make baking so much easier, and much more successful, oh, yes, and a lot of fun too. That is the secret to a good cake. Kids like to play with those tools too (see here). The tools are not expensive and you can find them in any grocery store.

A few years ago when I didn’t own that set and wanted to bake I had to do a lot of guessing – what is exactly a “teaspoon” or a “cup”, and the cakes usually turned out not so good, if not a disaster. So, please meet:

Measuring spoons – for measuring salt, spices, vanilla extract, juice)
Measuring cups for dry ingredients – for measuring flour, sugar, cacao, etc
Measuring cup for liquids
Zester – for zesting the peel of citrus

Now try some of the baking recipes, have fun and play. And don’t discourage. Practice makes perfect, right?!

You might find this post interesting too: Cool tool: Tea infuser

Good luck!
Nurit

Cake recipes:
Orange Hazelnut Honey Cake
Cocoa-Marzipan Pound Cake
Rose-orange cheesecake
Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Crostata with Summer Fruit
Blueberry crumb cake

Cool tool: Tea infuser

Definition of tea infuser in Wikipedia:
A tea infuser is a device in which loose tea leaves are placed for brewing. The infuser is placed in a cup or pot of hot or boiling water, allowing the tea to brew without loose tea leaves spilling into the pot or cup. A rod or chain is commonly attached to the container of the infuser to make retrieval from the pot or cup easier. (To read more about the tool and its classical use on Wikipedia, click here.)

I use this tool very often but not for tea. It is a great gadget to use when making soups, stews, and sauces (or when cooking anything in a lot of water/broth/stock). Instead of throwing small ingredients like herbs, whole peppercorns, garlic cloves and other small particles directly into your pot, place them inside the tea infuser. This way you don’t have to fish those ingredients out when the cooking is done and it is time to eat.

Biting on a whole garlic clove or a black peppercorn is not the best tasting experience. Without using the tea infuser you will have those little ingredients swimming in your dish and you will have some fishing to do to take them out of your big pot of soup. When cooking artichokes, for example, it is easier to find the herbs and garlic and take them out, unlike in a soup or a stew (see Artichokes). I also use a tea infuser when I cook potatoes for mashed potatoes. I put thyme, garlic and a few black peppercorns in the infuser. Then, when the potatoes are cooked I pull the infuser out. Then, when I mash the potatoes they are smooth and creamy with no green or black specs in it from the herbs and spices

You might find this post interesting too: Cool tools: Baking must-haves.