THE REAL ESSENTIALS

As all great chefs know, having the proper tools is essential. Even the Gods as Hasbro are aware of that. They have designed and successfully marketed a line of “Easy Bake Essentials.” For us at the Lightbulb Cuisine test kitchen, we have our own “essentials.”

Not a day goes by when sous chef Shelby or I don't clamber for the Williams-Sonoma mini rubber scrapers. These handy gadgets are the center of our stirring universe. When we need to get every smudge of tasty batter or dough out of a mixing bowl, we wouldn't dream of scraping with anything else.

Another of our kitchen faves is the mini whisk. When we need to whip a mixture into a fine froth, the mini whisk is our special go-to gadget.

And when we need to combine all those many teaspoons of ingredients, we find the Pampered Chef measuring spoons to be an indispensable essential. An inseparable indispensable essential even!

Would a golfer hit the links with a hockey stick? No! And you shouldn't use sub-par cooking tools. So don't bother messing about with your Easy Bake oven if you're ill equipped to take on the task at hand. Use my recommendations or find your own equivalents, so you, too, can bake easy!

Love, Cookie B.

PREHEATING: AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY

You will notice when I prepare a baked item inside the Easy Bake oven -- as opposed to on the warming tray -- I instruct readers to preheat the oven. It it my great hope that you do not choose to disregard this piece of sage advice.

Whenever you begin to bake, it's always important to preheat the oven. Especially the Easy Bake! You never want to shove in a batch of brownies or a pan of zitis into a cold Easy Bake oven. It's a rookie move and you could end up with food that is burned on the bottom, yet lukewarm on top. An Easy Bake should always be preheated for 15 minutes prior to use. This time is not negotiable. The fiery hot light bulb needs to reach a proper temp before baking. So plug it in, prep your items and cook with ease!

Love, Cookie B.

A PEEL BY ANY OTHER NAME...

...is just gauche.

According to the printed instructions, the cooking device that loosely resembles a shuffleboard cue, and is used to navigate food into and out of the oven, is called a “pan pusher.”

As members of the Easy Bake elite, do we even need to discuss the myriad reasons for why this is wrong? For simplicity sake, let's just say it's bourgeois. Everyone knows that a pusher is someone who tries to sell you drugs on the street like a common criminal. Calling this necessary cooking tool a pan pusher is terribly unprofessional. No one at The Rainbow Room or Le Cirque calls this type of item a pan pusher. The slovenly staff member who carelessly thrusts desserts and baked goods into an oven might be known as the pan pusher, but the device itself is known as a peel in the culinary world, as everyone knows. Henceforth, let this essential Easy Bake gadget be known as the peel.

Happy baking!

Love, Cookie B.