Organizing Your Kitchen: What Goes Where in VS .NET

Encoder Code 128 in VS .NET Organizing Your Kitchen: What Goes Where

You may have visions of lengthy, polished, stainless steel counters, several deep sinks, and a bounty of double ovens, but you really don t need a million dollar dream kitchen to accomplish all your cake baking and decorating What you do need is to keenly analyze your particular workspace and adapt it for your adventure Besides delineating the area where the actual cake decorating will occur (see the next section for that information), you ll need to figure out the best place for appliances large and small for access and

efficiency You also need to determine the kind of counter space that will work for you and adopt some tidy habits for a smooth-running endeavor The must-haves in a cake-friendly kitchen are the kitchen components that do figure into your entire cake venture They include the following: Refrigerator for chilling layers, frostings until they re ready to tint and in between uses, and your finished cake Oven for baking Stovetop for cooking frostings and fillings Mixer for preparing batters, frostings, and fillings Freezer for freezing layers (optional) Microwave for melting and softening Food processor for chopping nuts, chocolate, embellishments Spice or coffee grinder for preparing ingredients that should be finely powdered

Survey your kitchen to determine where you may set up shop to decorate Fortunately, because decorating largely takes place after baking, you can get all your baking ingredients and equipment such as cooling racks out of the way before bringing in frosting, coloring gels, piping bags, and embellishments Because you can t just work anywhere you set down a cake, keep in mind the room you ll need to decorate and the access you ll need to your tools and supplies, including your tinted frostings and embellishments, appliances such as a mixer or spice grinder, and equipment such as a sink If you have a cake board, a turntable, or cake cardboard rounds, lay them out in the workspace to get a real sense of the room each item takes up If you don t have those accessories, lay out your baking pans to get a rough idea of space allotment If you don t have enough room in one part of your kitchen to work with your decorating equipment, keep moving around until you find the right-sized space Also get a sense of the accessibility of the tools you call on in decorating your cakes You don t always use all these utensils and decorating assists on every project, but it s helpful to get an idea of the space they take up and the space you need to use them These include (but aren t limited to) Cups, glasses, or clear tumblers to hold frosting bags upright Bowls in which to mix coloring gels into frosting A tray of tips

Icing spatulas Decorating combs The space you decide on for decorating doesn t have to be exclusively for decorating; it just has to serve you during the actual course of decorating So if you have to shuffle around or remove counter staples (such as a toaster or coffee maker), you can put them back after you re done If possible, don t set up your decorating space where you may repeatedly bang your head into an upper cabinet as you work, and the burners of a stove don t qualify as a working counter space

Much is written about the kitchen triangle, the workspace pathway between the refrigerator, sink, and oven, but I don t worry so much about that for cake baking and decorating More important is making sure that all the ingredients for the task are lined up, that all the appliances and apparatuses are in working order, and that all the accoutrements are collected, stacked, and close at hand Nothing can stifle (and possibly stop) the cake baking and decorating process like a missing ingredient, a burned-out mixer, or an oven that doesn t reach the desired temperature If you spot potential problems and troubleshoot from the outset, you re in for a much smoother operation Purchase a couple of clear plastic containers (with lids) in which you can collect only the tools, accessories, and nonperishable embellishments that you plan to use for a particular cake If you don t have the space to lay out everything you need, the containers provide a handy resource to pull from so that you aren t interrupting the cake process to sift through lots of utensils and foodstuffs to find what you need