Equipment odds and ends

Cooling Racks.

Cooling racks took some time to find the right ones.  My main issues with many of the mishmash of cooling racks I had was they tended to rust at the crossing point.  The weld apparently either broke the coating on the metal or the material used to do the welding was rusting.  The rust was more a visual thing for me as I doubt it would be a sanitary issue.

After searching I found these racks They sit a little higher than most racks allowing more air to flow around item cooling.  They can be used in the oven which I use to make bacon now.  I don’t fry bacon any longer, too much splatter.  In the oven you can cookie the whole package.  No need to turn or drain.  Put the rack in a jelly roll pan, lay the bacon on the rack, put in 375-degree oven.

These racks don’t rust and go through the dishwasher.  Very sturdy too. Not often but they do go on sale from time to time. Over time I acquired 8 of these.

As you will pick up, I recommend buying several of things such as cooling racks, cookie sheets, measuring spoons, etc.  For cooling racks this allows you to layout a lot of cookies without needing to move the cookies to a bowl or tray while others cool.  Cookies are fragile when they come out of the oven and best to let them cool completely before stacking or moving them

Measuring Spoons

Like most of my equipment up to when I started baking seriously, I had a collection of measuring spoons from different manufacturers.  Most of them were plastic.  They worked fine but I didn’t have enough and the tablespoon size didn’t fit into my spice jars that had spoon scrapers.  The Allspice Wood Spice Rack has bottles with spoon scraper making it easy to scrape the spoon when filling it.  I needed to find some spoons that were narrower.  I found these spoons .  I ordered four sets of them; I store them into cups with teaspoons and tablespoons in one cup and the others in another cup.  Makes it easy to find the size I need.  By having four of each size I can use a spoon and not worry about cleaning it or accidentally using it with a different ingredients cross contaminating it.