Five Essential Tools for (Almost) Pro Baking
Apr 14th, 2009 by Marilyn
Historically, only a chosen few have great ideas that come to fruition. A nameless few had the same idea, but left it hanging on the tree. Has this happened to you? It’s happened to me – and more than once. Think of it this way: some people have a date with destiny. I catch destiny speeding off with the girl who puts out.
Take that holiday season, the one I spent baking a forest of buche noels. I piped hundreds of meringue mushrooms too, each one lovingly dirtied with cocoa, earthy and sweet. They delighted me, and when they seemed to delight the masses, I lined berry baskets with gingham, piled in faux shrooms, then cellophaned and ribboned the whole thing. I called them Champignons-Something-Or-Other and slapped a wildly Frenchified sticker on top. When a gourmet sales pal declared them fabulous, I raced up to Chicago’s Fancy Food Show with sugared mushrooms and dollar signs in my eyes.
I bounced into the aisles with a purse full of samples and a song in my heart, but one of the first booths we saw stopped me cold. People lined up, clamoring and craning for…meringues. Meringue mushrooms, to be exact, charm-ready and packaged. Clunky, I thought, but they were ready to go, first in a place where first topped best. I narrowed my eyes at the now-copycat stuff in my bag, now just sugar fungus, and saw torn wrapping and meringue crumbs on my keys. What would be next?
Well. All kinds of bright stabs would be next, including a long-time favorite almost, Ooh La La! I’m a Pastry Chef. That was a book idea: sharing tips and tricks from the bakery world to make people appear almost pro. Why, and I mean why, Ooh La La? Because it’s silly French, and at the time – in truth, maybe still – my ideas held a wide range of glaring to obvious. I planned outlines, notes and a vividly detailed Paris book tour, but soon walked into Borders and found, in rapid succession, one book after another offering the exact same thing. Except they were…already books.
I like to believe that nothing is ever a total loss, and thus I’m certain that the gods send you already-ideas for a purpose. If Ooh La La! wasn’t destined for the shelf, perhaps its tips and tricks – obvious to me, but that’s my middle name – might be useful to you. It doesn’t matter if you’re an occasional baker or a perpetually flour-faced nut; adapt to these five essentials and your kitchen ideas will rise, elevating everything you make to (almost) pro status.
Cake Stand
My iron-based Ateco is about seventeen years old now. In equipment years that’s a baby – and these babies will last a lifetime. Use a turntable stand and all frosting secrets will be revealed; with a little spin and the right spatula, below, you will learn – smooth or swirly – how to properly ice a cake.
Offset Metal Spatula
Think of an offset metal spatula as the diplomat in your kitchen: there’s nothing it can’t smooth out. You can use it to spread buttercream, layer preserves, swirl pastry cream in tart shells. It’s the right tool for thick batters like brownie, banana bread and pound cake. My favorite metal spatula trick: for a glossy buttercream finish, heat the spatula blade under very hot water, then quickly smooth the top of your cake.
Pastry Bag
Yes, with a little practice, you and a pastry bag can pipe shells and ropes and spirals – even roses – and all sorts of frosted goodies on your newly enhanced cakes. But the pastry bag is no one-trick pony – it can also swirl pastry cream onto sponge cake, above, or pipe sweet potatoes into rosettes; portion jam into tartlets; it can pipe a hundred macaron halves for fifty perfect bites. Once you get the squeeze of it, you’ll wonder how you lived without it.
Parchment paper
“I know I should use it,” said my mom, “but I don’t.” Granted, parchment paper is a luxury, and a bit wasteful – if you’re not buying in bulk, those grocery-store tubes seem awfully small for the price. Still, every baker should have one box around, enough to protect delicate spritz cookies, to evenly brown your layer cake, to line your lemon bars. Advanced but essential for the serious baker: learn to cut and shape parchment triangles into mini paper cones, perfect for writing with melted chocolate, striping cookies with royal icing, applying dots of jam. Become one with parchment, and all those little finishes will make a huge dessert difference.
Graduated Round Cookie Cutters
I don’t list knives here, because if you like to cook, you probably already have the one good big and the one good small knife you need. Knives do the work of slicing, chopping, even layering – but for a truly creative arsenal, you’ll want a good-quality set of graduated cutters. The most important thing you’ll never hear about cutters? They’re called cookie cutters but are not just for cookies. Bake a sheet of brownies and turn them into hearts. Cut circles of maple fudge, stamp square pound cake petit fours, shape your carrot cake, your polenta, your scones. The leftover middle bits? I believe we call those snacks.
Growing up, we had exactly one round, fluted cutter – I know some families used an upside-down glass – so personally, I can never get enough shapes. You can move on later to delightful squares and endlessly useful hearts, but start by investing in a set of graduated rounds. They’ll give all your desserts a polished, no-you-did-not-make-that look, leaving them thinking that clearly, you’re (almost) a pro.
The Five Essentials meet: brownies baked on parchment, cut into hearts, offset spatula-glazed and piped with tiny pastry bag roses. The cake stand? It doubled as lazy susan, serving brownie bits in the round.
This article should come with a warning: breathtaking food image below! Heartstoppingly beautiful brownies.
I must now venture out to replace offset spatula and piping bag lost in house move FIVE YEAR’S AGO…
I desperately want a pastry bag but everytime I pick one up, I wonder how you wash it…and then I put it back down. I’m a spaz!! LOL
Great list! I was hoping to find something I didn’t have to justify a trip to Sur La Table, but I have pretty much everything on it, so I’m in total agreement with you!
To Renovation Therapy: You can buy disposable plastic pastry bags to eliminate the annoying chore of washing them out (although washing isn’t too hard; just turn them out and use soap and hot water). Just cut off the tip and stick your pastry tip in it. In fact, you can even, in a pinch, use disposable pastry bags without a metal pastry tip if you cut a tiny enough opening.
I have managed all of my cooking years without a fluted cookie cutter…that is, until I made your Jam Tarts or Cookies or Whatever You Want to Call Them. Mine were not pretty. I wanted pretty. (The taste was already there.) I live in the KC area and need a bit of help trying to locate an assortment of fluted cutters. Any ideas? I’m willing to go online but not until I have exhausted locally. For something so simple I can’t believe I’m having this much trouble trying to locate them. Your list of must haves is spot on. Thanks!
Yes, do tell where you got your fluted cutters (and even your non-fluted cutters). And where did you buy your Ateco cake stand? I’ve only ever seen plastic ones.
Disposable pastry bags are awesome and so easy to use.
Well, I am the total opposite of “Jessica Harlan.” I own none of these things! And it’s a beautiful day here, so I will now head to The Bay Leaf (our local store for all things cooking), procure these essentials, and then bake a care package to take to my boy in college this weekend. Seeing as how my last set of baked goods came from a Pillsbury tube, he’s going to be in stunned shock. And if my stuff looks even ten percent as good as Marilyn’s, so will I!
This is a great list! (I’ve starred it to add to my registry, since I have stopped letting myself buy my own kitchen gadgetry.) I hope you share more of your thoughts for Oooh La La here in the future!
I am also hunting for the fluted cookie cutters. I made the jam tarts and they were yummy but not as pretty as yours. The brownies are amazing!!!!
A few pressing questions answered:
Where to buy? You can purchase most of these items anywhere they sell extensive cooking or cake-decorating supplies, like Michael’s, Williams-Sonoma, or Sur La Table. Even better, seek out your local restaurant supply outlet; they usually have a retail shop that sells to the public, where you can get stronger-quality pieces like the Ateco metal-based cake stand.
Fluted Graduated Cutters: a great & well-priced Ateco set on Amazon http://is.gd/suWC
Cleaning Pastry Bags: Jean, that’s no excuse! The best way to clean a pastry bag is with loads of hot water; then pop the bag over an upside-down glass or bottle to dry.
Disposable Pastry Bags: yes, they’re handy to have around, especially if you need several color icings, as in holiday cookies. But I urge you to invest in at least one good pastry bag, preferably the real canvas kind. You’ll have it forever.
Nella,
Locally, you might try Pryde’s in old westport 816.531.5588 They usually have a wonderful assortment of items. Also, if you go with the resturant supply route, I believe there is a place around 18th and Main that used to sell that sort of thing. Been a while since I’ve been in that neck of the woods but I used to see storefront signage on my old drive home
Any particular method for using the offset spatula, Mar? We have one, but I am not wise in its ways.
I found the fluted cutters @ the Piggly Wiggly.
Yes, they really exist down here.
I use them often.
I love love love parchment – currently have 4 boxes 12″ wide and two boxes 15″ wide. I make thousands of cookies at Christmas time and use it for most recipes. I also re-use each sheet maybe four times, sometimes more, I just wipe off the crumbs with a paper towel. I have bought lots of good quality baking items from:
http://www.intotheoven.com/
well I don’t do pastry bag…but I have been known to use a zip-loc baggie with the corner cut off…;)
I’m lucky to have them all, but it’s nice to hear your tips. My baking skills are a work in progress
Brava!! I love this post!
OK…love the heated spatula trick. I will definitely give it a whirl the next time I frost a carrot cake (I usually sprinkle on some chopped walnuts to cover up my many frosting inperfections). The only thing on the list I don’t have is the turntable cake stand and it’s definitely on my list (should have remembered that for Santa. Damn! Am I even allowed to say, “damn” when talking about Santa?). And…I would sooooooooooo buy your Oh La La book…in a heartbeat…though I’m almost thinking your book title should be, “Baking Adventures: Catching Destiny Speeding Off with the Girl Who Puts Out.” HAHAHAHA!
I’d volunteer to be your publicist for the book tour, in fact.
What a charming writing style you have! I would certainly any book written in such a way. A joy to read, and with useful tips besides. Those brownie hearts are gorgeous. I aspire to do work like that (got a long way to go…). Thanks for sharing!
Lovely post! Learned a lot!
I tried to eat my computer screen….