After cooking dinner and desserts for a few months, I came to recognize a oft-used hardware duo: the jelly roll pan/cooling rack combo. An elongated cooling rack inserted into a jelly roll pan allows this this multi-tasker to serve as a:
- suspended baking contraption for oven headed foods like onion rings, fish sticks, etc. Basically it allow the hot air under the food in addition to around the food. Saves having to “flip” items half way through.
- drizzling rack for frosting cakes, etc. It suspends the cake, pastery, etc and allows that gooey icing to be drizzled from above without having to worry about catching the overflow
- fried food drain board – line the pan with newspaper and then insert the rack up-side down. The drained oil never touches the food and never clings to the rack.
- a simple grilling rack for the oven – great for roasting meats as it catches the drippings and also elevates the food allowing cooking on both sides.
The more I cook, the more uses I find for this dynamic duo.
