One of the most important pieces of kitchen equipment to have on hand during the summer - excluding a working refrigerator/freezer - is probablyt an ice cream scoop. That may be a big of an exaggeration, but when the weather is really hot, ice cream is a fantastic way to cool down quickly. A few months ago, Cook’s Illustrated ran a review of ice cream scoops to see which did the best job of delivering nice-looking scoops with the minimum of fuss.

They tested seven different brands for ease of use, comfort and appearance of the resulting ice cream scoop. They actually had to eliminate a lot of models based on the last category, either because the shape of the scoop was off or because the ice cream stuck so badly that there was little chance of getting a round scoop. Three brands emerged with high marks: the Rösle Ice Cream Scoop was the top finisher, easy to use and with camera-ready scoops, followed by the Zeroll Original Ice Cream Scoop (which I have and have always had great results with) and the Fantes Stainless Portion Scoop #16 (also known as a 1/4 cup scoop). The OXO i-Series Ice Cream Scoop and the KitchenAid Ice Cream Scoop were recommended with reservations, as the OXO made oblong scoops instead of round and the KitchenAid was very bulky. Not recommended were the Van Vacter Ice Cream Knife and the Tovolo Standz Ice Cream Scoop.

Although not inluded in the CI review, I still really like the ice cream scoop & stack from Cuisipro, which creates cylindrical “scoops” that are easy to pile into a cone. The shape of the ice cream has a little bit of a nostalgic feel for me, and it works qell after being dipped in hot water to ensure that the plunger will easily be able to push out the ice cream from the scoop.

Guittard’s White Chocolate Wafers are some of my favorite chocolates to use in the kitchen. White chocolate is chocolate that has no cocoa solids in it. It is made with cocoa butter - the natural fat that gives chocolate its silky melt - sugar, milk and vanilla. It is much easier to find a decent milk or dark chocolate than it is to find a good white chocolate, and coupled with the fact that you can use cocoa powder to add a chocolate flavor to many recipes without needing any solid chocolate, this might be why white chocolate isn’t used quite as commonly as its darker cousins.

The Guittard White Chocolate just might make you want to use more white chocolate in your baking. The chocolate smells like milk, cream and vanilla, and all of these carry over into the flavor of the chocolate. It is sweet, but not cloying in the least, and has a very smooth melt to it. The amount of cocoa butter in the chocolate is what gives it its melt, although the disc shape of the chocolates helps a lot. The discs are not more than 3/4-inch across and are quite thin. They melt very easily - much more easily than the cheaper, sweeter white chocolates I’ve tried - with a little bit of heat, so they can easily be incorporated into recipes. You can chop them and use them as chocolate chips, although Guittard also sells white chocolate chips pre-bagged.

These chocolate wafers are sold online (scroll down the page), but are also often sold in specialty baking stores. I’ve seen them in Williams Sonoma and at Cost Plus World Market before, too.

Batter Blaster is a product that I really wanted to lampoon when it first came out. It is pancake batter that comes in a spray can, just liked canned whipped cream. It’s organic and promises to produce light and fluffy pancakes with with “no mess - no cleanup!” I like to make pancakes from scratch and thought that the product was a little unnecessary, but after seeing it get a good review in Consumer Reports this month (July 2009), I had to give it a try for myself.

The pancake/waffle batter comes out of the can looking a lot like thick whipped cream, thanks to the pastry-type nozzle on top of the can. The batter soon spreads out into an even pancake and bakes up to be very slightly crisp on the top and bottom and nice and light. They’re not bad, and have a tangy taste that is similar to sourdough. That said, it’s not easy to get pancakes that are “fluffy” with this can. The less batter you use (the can says to make 4-inch pancakes), the thinner the pancakes are. The more batter you use, the fluffier they are, although they achieve only a moderate thickness at best. Although the pancakes are pretty good, I think that this would make better waffles, where the crisp outer layer and light, tender interior would be close to the ideal texture for a waffle.

The store near me sells this for about $6 a can and you can get about 8 servings per can. It’s much cheaper to make your own or simply buy a Bisquick-type of mix, but the pancakes aren’t bad and I can see that a can of Batter Blaster would make a great gift (along with a frying pan) for a kid headed off to college or moving out into his/her first apartment.

After my recent trip to Paris, followed by a trip to Trader Joe’s to restock my pantry, I had a little realization about Trader Joe’s Canneles de Bordeaux. I reviewed these specialty french pastries a few months ago, when Trader Joe’s launched a pre-baked frozen version. They were ok, but not nearly as good as a fresh cannele. Ideally, a cannele should have a slightly crisp crust and a very custardy center. What I realized is that even though they weren’t quite as good as a fresh-from-the-oven cannele, they were a lot better than some of the heavy, bread-like canneles I tasted in France. This inspired me to pick up a box of Trader Joe’s newest offering - Chocolate Canneles de Bordeaux - and give them a try.

Like the regular canneles, these chocolate canneles are best eaten after being defrosted and reheated in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 350F. When made this way, they come out with a slightly crisp, yet slightly tough, crust and a moist, soft interior. They remind me of a not-too-sweet molten center chocolate cake, since the center seemed to be more like a half-baked brownie than a custard. That said, they were pretty good and definitely unusual. My preference is still for the classic, where you can get the notes of vanilla, caramel and eggy custard in each bite, but the dark cocoa flavor (these are so dark in color, they’re almost black) makes these a good choice for chocolate fans who prefer dark chocolate.

My mom always reminded me to pack a few granola bars or some similar treats with me when I traveled because, according to her, you never know when you’re going to need a snack. The plane might be late and all the restaurants will be closed when you land. You might end up spending 2 hours waiting in an unavoidably long ticket line. She was right. I pretty much always pack a granola bar or two just in case. I think I may have found a snack that could replace my granola bars, though: Nutella To Go.

I’ve seen small, snack-sized packages of Nutella before, but these combination biscuit and Nutella packs are a little handier because they include a way of easily delivering the Nutella without having to stop and pick up some bread or crackers to go with. They fit easily in a pocket or purse, plus they’re only about 250 calories and 4 grams of protein. The little biscuit sticks are a little bland on their own, but the generous amount of Nutella makes up for it.

I found these packs on my trip to Paris, so I’m not sure if you can buy them in the US, but keep an eye out. You could always put together your own snack-sized packs with homemade Nutella!

Nothing beats a homemade chocolate chip cookie, fresh from the oven, but storebought cookies have their appeal at times, too. They’re convenient, for one thing, and often have a certain crisp-tenderness that is unique to a non-homemade cookie. Not that this is necessarily “better” than a buttery, chewy cookie, but it does stand up to dunking in milk pretty well! The problem with storebought, prepackaged cookies is that a lot of them range from bland to bad, and there seem to be more bad than good. In their most recent issue, Consumer Reports gave a quick taste test to 13 different brands of storebought chocolate chip cookies and picked out their favorites.The two top choices were Healthy Valley Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies and Keebler Chips Deluxe Original Cookies.

Both of these were deemed to be “well blended, flavorful [with a] good chip-to-chocolate ratio [and were] crunchy but tender” - perfect for dunking in milk. Continuing down the list, the runners up, in the “Good” category, included Nacisco Chips Ahoy! Real Chocolate, Trader Joe’s Dress Circle Crispy Crunchy, Back to Nature Chocolate Chunk and Pepperide Farm Nantucket Soft Baked, Great Value (Walmart brand), Nabisco Chips Ahoy! Real Chocolate Reduced Fat, Newman’s Own Organics Champion Chocolate Chip and Famous Amos. Archer Farms Organic Petit and Pamela’s Products Chunky Gourmet All Natural were the bottom finishers in the taste test. Consumer Reports noted that the organic cookies they tried had no flavor advantage over regular cookies and, in some cases, were much less tasty than their counterparts.