Thursday, September 18, 2008

thoughts on baking cookies

scoops:
I bought a ice cream style cookie dough scoop ages ago because I thought it was cute, but didn't use it until this month because it seemed like it would probably be one of those 'tools' that actually just makes things harder and creates more dishes. I was wrong! I used it to make peanut butter cookies, because I wanted them to be fairly uniform... and I fell in love. This is the best idea ever! It does not stick the way I was afraid it would, it washes easily in the dishwasher, and it makes scooping drop cookies a million times faster than just using a spoon (or two)! I love this thing!

parchment paper:
I was really mad that the standard rolls of parchment paper are too wide to nicely cover my cookie sheets in one direction, and too narrow to cover it the other way. I hate either having to fold the extra under or cut it too short and waste precious cookie sheet space. It just seems wasteful to me. Then... through the magic of amazon, I just realized that they sell sheets of parchment paper that are perfect for cookie sheets! How did I go this long without knowing this?! What a month of fantastic discovery! Of course, after all of this headache, I'm really tempted to just cave and spend the money on a few silicone mats so that I don't have to keep resupplying (and because I feel bad throwing away so much parchment paper). I'm just so wary about buying things like that now, after a very bad experience with a silicone bundt pan. Hrm.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The silicone mats are great, and I don't think you have the same problems as silicone bakeware. Although you don't say what your problem is with the bakeware. Mine is that it's hard to get stuff out, without them breaking apart. But the silicone mats, no problems there.

Elizabeth said...

Amy - Yeah. I thought that the silicone bakeware changed the cooking times on things, and it was WAY hard to get finished food out, even majorly coating the silicone with butter/cooking spray. And that sucked.

Engineer Baker said...

My problem with silicone mats is that I can't bake bread on them - not enough air flow. Evidently, there are mats called silpains instead of silpats which work, but I've yet to find them. Oh yeah, and ice cream scoops for cookies - best invention ever. I love using the large one to fill my muffin pan too; it's just so much neater.

Hayley said...

I have to agree with engineer baker, my ice cream scoop was my biggest lifesaver until the thing went rusty, not good. I've been looking to replace it with something a bit better quality : ( I've been struggling to find one in the UK with a release thingy

I also have a silicone mat but I have the same issue as with the parchment paper, it doesn't fit properly on my oblong tray or my cookie sheet. I've seen silicone baking sheets that have wire reinforcements round the edge so you can use them on their own, they're on my xmas list!

Jules Someone said...

Love my Silpats. That's a brand name, by the way, so you might find it under other names. They are easy easy easy. Mine don't fit great on my cookie sheets, but they are perfect for a half sheet pan. I use them for challah but not for other breads.