My Favourite Baking Tool

Our editor-in-chief shares her favourite utensil for keeping baked goods looking pretty from the pan to the plate.

It’s harvest time: last week it was zucchinis, and this week, I’m managing a bumper crop of tomatoes. I’m not a canner (though I wish I was)—instead, I’m following Julie Van Rosedaal’s terrific recipe for roasting tomatoes before I freeze them. They’re perfect for a quick pasta or pizza dinner, and the roasting processes caramelizes them, making even mediocre tomatoes sweet and delicious. But the trick to keeping them pretty from pan to plate is my favourite kitchen tool: a cookie spatula. This mini nylon and stainless spatula stays out of the way of the other beautifully roasted fruits as it slides under each tomato, preventing the collapse that can happen with larger tools.(Of course, the rest of the year I’m using it to lift my chocolate-chip cookies. It’s important your favourite tool have a couple of good uses.)Norpro Mini Stainless & Nylon spatula, $7.95, cookworks.ca