"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
Kitchen Tip: How to Cover Pretty Cupcakes and Cookies Without Messing Them Up
by Melanie Gunnell
Ignore me if all of you
have figured this out already, but I am always frustrated trying to
figure out how to cover platters of decorated cupcakes and cookies
without messing up the frosting. Am I alone in this?
It’s not a need
I’m faced with every day, but occasionally, I have a tray of,
say, number eight sugar cookies that have been swirled prettily with
frosting and by golly, I don’t want the plastic wrap pressing
into the frosting and ruining my hard work (neither do I want to use
a hard set royal icing because…well, long live soft
creamy frosting forever, plus, the royal icing isn’t feasible
on cupcakes).
It’s not an issue
if the cookies aren’t leaving my house but if I need to store
them overnight and/or move them to another location, then I kind of
feel like covering them is the best defense against toddler fingers,
bugs and other hazards.
So this last time, I
opened every drawer in my kitchen hoping for inspiration and sure
enough, when I spied those spindly straws an idea came to me.
I put a piece of tape
on the short side of the straw and bent the long side up. Then I
pressed the tape to the underside of the platter making sure to
mold it tightly to the sides of the straw so the straw
wouldn’t wiggle.
Stick with me (no pun
intended); you’ll see how this all comes together. I was using
a ceramic platter here and regular ol’ Scotch tape came off
just fine after but using blue painter’s tape might be an even
more sure bet for no residue left on the tray.
I repeated this six
times total, three on each side (it was a square platter) and bent
the straws inward like shown to create a little canopy base for the
plastic wrap. Then, I laid out three pieces of plastic wrap on the
counter, overlapping slightly, and gently lifted it over the top of
the straws so that it rested right on the tips of all the straws
without bending the straws too close to the precious cookies.
I carefully folded the
edges of the plastic wrap under the tray…and…crisis
averted! Pretty simple but very effective. That plastic wrap
didn’t even get close to those cookies.
Me: 1, Messed Up Cookies: 0.
I’ve used this
method since for cupcakes (just don’t bend the straws down
quite as far) and a few other trays of cookies. It works like a
dream. Once I transport the cookies, I gently lift off the plastic
wrap and then flip the straws back — they peel right off
the underside of the platter.
So there you have it!
Not rocket science and it definitely isn’t going to change the
world, but it works and has made me very, very happy. Ah, the simple
things in life…
Melanie Gunnell is a food-loving, chocolate-obsessed mom who has a desperate need to share
her favorite tried-and-true recipes with the world. In a past life she graduated from Brigham
Young University with a degree in public health, but for the past ten years, stay-at-home
motherhood has been her job along with blogging-from-home for the past five.
She resides in the brilliantly cold tundra of Northern Minnesota with her husband and their brood
of five children: four boys and one tiny, bossy girl. Dark chocolate (particularly the act of
shoving chocolate chips in her mouth whilst hiding in the pantry) is her coping skill of choice for
both the never-ending winters and the never-ending wrestling matches in her front room.