15 of the Best Last-Minute Holiday Cooking Tips
Make Beautiful Pies, Create Emergency Cooking Equipment and More
Nov 1, 2009
Improvising homemade cooking equipment from items that are already in the kitchen or around the house will help to avoid a mad dash to the store right before the guests arrive to a holiday party. Common kitchen items can also be used to decorate pie crust, cookies and pastries. Here are the 12 best last-minute holiday cooking tips using common household items.
Using Cups as Emergency Cooking Supplies
Drinking cups and measuring cups can be made into a number of useful, impromptu cooking items. For example:
- Turn a measuring cup or drinking cup upside down for a round cookie cutter or biscuit cutters. Use different sized glasses for different sizes of cookies and biscuits.
- Turn a smooth, glass drinking glass on its side for a good replacement rolling pin.
- Use the bottom of the cup to press indentations into cookies for an interesting pattern.
- Fill clear glasses or goblets with pudding and whipped cream for a quick dessert.
- Put cookies or candy bars in a plastic sack and smash them by rolling a glass back and forth over the bag. The crumbs make a great garnish for parfates, pies and cakes.
Uses for Forks and Spoons
Forks and spoons may seem to have only one purpose, but a crafty cook can turn them into so much more.
- For an interesting pie crust edge, press the tines of a fork into the dough be for cooking.
- Make peanut butter cookies pretty by pressing fork tines into the cookie in one direction and then in another direction to make a cross-hatch pattern before baking.
- Press a spoon around the edges of cookies or pastries to get scalloped edges.
- Replace a whisk by holding three forks and whipping the ingredients.
- Use a fork as a potato masher.
Quick Pan Replacements
Most home cooks have been without a pan they needed at one time or another. Often times, a new pan can be fashioned out of an old one or can be made with simple household items.
- Cookie sheets can be made by wrapping cardboard squares with aluminum foil. As long as they are away from open flame (like on the top rack or in an electric oven) and don’t have packing tape on them, they won’t catch fire.
- Use a baking pan instead of a cookie sheet. Make sure that the edges of the cookies don’t touch the pan edges, though.
- Non-stick woks can be used as quick replacements for round cakes pans.
- With the lids on, woks also make good baking pans. Keep the handles of the woks away from open flames, though, to avoid damage or fires.
- Muffin pans can be used to make small quiches, tarts or pies.
Keep these holiday cooking tips in mind and holiday entertaining will go a lot smoother.
HOL101
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