Archive for: cookie pans
Easter is always a good time to find whimsical, spring-themed bakeware to add to your collection, and Wilton’s new Easter Cookie Pan is a perfect example. These cookie pans have been becoming increasingly popular over the past few years. They have shallow cavities with a distinct shape or design to them that you can simply press cookie dough (or brownie batter, etc.) into and bake. The pans give you a lot of design options and they have the advantage that they can be used with every type of cookie dough, while traditional cookie cutters restrict your options to plainer cookies and doughs that don’t spread. This particular pan has an Easter theme and offers a dozen unique designs including rabbits, Easter eggs, a chick, a tulip, a watering can, and a lady bug, as well as others. The pan has a nonstick surface, so your cookies should pop out easily after baking, with designs that are clear and easy to see.
This is one of the only cookie pans I’ve seen that offers twelve distinct designs for its cookies, and I think it’s great to see such variety. It makes the cookies a lot more fun – especially when you’re putting them out to serve – and gives you a lot more decorating to do as you work your way through the designs. Of course, the design is imprinted on the cookies during baking and will be clear enough that the cookies don’t need to be decorated, but some colorful frosting to highlight the details makes the cookies even more festive (and will give kids something to do besides dye eggs for the holiday).
Getting all of your cookie sheets, muffin tins and cake pans organized is an issue that every baker faces, because in most kitchens there often isn’t enough built-in cabinet space to accommodate everything you have for baking. There are many options when it comes to storage, and after years of stacking up baking pans anywhere they’ll fit, you can definitely appreciate something that will keep your collection in place. And installing something like the Copco Adjustable Bakeware Organizer will go a long way when it comes to getting your baking equipment organized and staying that way. The organizer is an adjustable rack that allows you to easily store a variety of large or bulky pans easily. Although your pans might not be compact, this rack is. It has six adjustable dividers – heavy-duty plastic, so they won’t scratch nonstick bakeware - that hold your gear and they’re mounted on a solid rubber base that provides enough support to store baking stones and other heavy-duty equipment.
The organizer can stand upright and also comes with screws to secure it into position. If you prefer your pans to be horizontally-oriented and stacked, the organizer’s base can also be mounted onto the wall or the side of a cabinet.
If you have the space in your kitchen, pantry or even your home-office, it is nice to have two of these and keep one filled with your “everyday” baking equipment and one with the less-used cake pans and other items so that you can still keep them organized but reduce clutter by not storing everything all together, too.
The companies that make specialty pans and other baking accessories are getting more and more creative with the holiday ideas that the come out with, so where we once had just two pumpkin-shaped pans to choose between for Halloween baking, there is now a wide array of everything from Witch’s Fingers to 3D Skulls. This Monster Pops Cookie Pan from Wilton is just another fun Halloween-inspired pan to add to the list. The pan bakes eight little monsters in each of four different shapes: a vampire, a Frankenstein, a tri-clops and a mummy. Like most cookie pans, all you need to do to use this pan is press your dough down into the nonstick cavities and bake. The dough will conform to the spooky shapes of the cookies and you can either leave them plain or use Wilton’s instructions to decorate them and give the monsters a little more character.
Since this is a cookie pop pan, there is a small depression at the base of each mold where you can rest a popsicle stick (after inserting most of it into the unbaked dough) that can bake into the cookie. You don’t need to turn these into cookie pops, of course, but when your cookies are on sticks they make much handier treats for trick-or-treaters and can be easier to display at a Halloween party.
An ice cream sundae or banana split is going to be delicious no matter what type of bowl it is served in, but assembling and serving it in an edible bowl that adds another layer of flavor to the dessert is going to trump even a fancy ice cream dish. All kinds of cookies make great bases for ice cream sundaes because they allow you to combine an ice cream sandwich and a sundae in one dessert. Wilton has actually designed a Cookie Bowl Pan that will have you making edible bowls in no time.
The nonstick pan features fluted cups, and rather than press the dough inside the cup, you roll it out and drape it over the convex side of each one. The cookies bake in the shape of the cup and end up with a generous cavity to fill with ice cream. The pan, like other Wilton offerings, comes with recipes that work well with the pan and result in sturdy bowls and dough that doesn’t spread too much. To use your own recipes, choose a cookie dough that is good for making rolled cookies (such as a butter cookie or gingerbread dough, which you can add chocolate chips and other add-ins to), so that your bowl will maintain its shape.If you flip the pan over, you can fill the cavities with cake, muffin and brownie batters for cute mini bundts when you’re not making cookie bowls.
I like the fluted cups enough that this pan has a welcome spot in my collection. That said, you can use a regular muffin pan to try your hand at making cookie bowls yourself. Many pans, however, will not be nonstick on their underside, so you’ll need to grease your pan or use an upside down paper liner to help the bowls not to stick. And if your pans are older and may have some discolored (or rusty) spots on the bottom where the seams of the pan come together, yo may want to use a different pan for this project.
Halloween is the perfect time of year to get creative with baked goods. You can pretty much go all out with colors and unusual decorations – after all, when else would you see Zombie Cookie Cutters and a Witch Finger Shortbread Pan? This year, Wilton has come out with a spooky new design that will make a great addition to any Halloween bakeware collection. Their Bone Cookie Pan bakes five bone-shaped bar cookies at a time. The pan is nonstick and the well defined bones are so smooth that they should release easily once baked. The bones are all about 6 inches long and about half an inch thick after baking. Since you’ll probably have to bake in batches to accommodate a large batch of cookie dough, it is also worth noting that the pan will cool down quickly, so you don’t have to wait too long to refill it once you’ve popped out an already baked batch of bones.
Any kind of cookie dough will work in this pan, whether you like chocolate chip, sugar cookies, shortbread or even brownies. You will probably have to bake a test batch to get the right baking time for your recipe once you start baking in these unusual molds. The bones can be served as-is or you can enrobe them in chocolate. You can even use some ganache or buttercream as glue to stick two half bones together to make one 3D bone for your Halloween table.
And when Halloween is over? You can always use this pan to make some pretty sharp looking dog biscuits that any puppy would be happy to eat.
