New toys have arrived!

Last night when I got home from work there was a big box on our front porch. My baking toys are here! As you get deeper into a new passion, you begin to learn all sorts of things about tool the professionals use, ways to be more efficient, etc. So, while combing through the thousands of pastry-related websites I came across a few supply companies.....and discovered some things I thought I would try out.

(Caution: The descriptions below are truly pastry-geek material. Perhaps a double espresso is in order if you plan to proceed.)

Parchment rounds No more fashioning circles from rectangular rolls of parchment for this girl! I now have approx. 100 pre-cut 9" parchment circles to use in the bottoms of my pans. This purchase should save me, oh say 7 minutes per cake!!

Pre-fab decorative cardboard pans I got these with the intention that I will be giving away packages of my brioche pecan rolls for the holidays. These beauties are nice enough to make a good presentation, and the beauty is that you can bake right in them!! Oops....I suppose some readers will know what they're getting for Christmas now.

Dowels Someday I intend to try to stack a couple of cakes to see what all of the fuss is about. Must have dowels on hand if you're gonna stack cakes.

Square pans I love the look of the trendy square cake, so I bought a few 9" square pans. Gonna play with them to see how they act/work and what the final product is like.

21" pastry bag This is the Mac Daddy of pastry bags! It can hold a butt-load of frosting! Just what you need for those bi-i-i-i-i-i-g cakes.

Cake boards For those of you who don't bake to give away or sell, you have no idea how many of these do-hickeys you need to have on hand. Not only boards, but boxes too. For each size cake that you do you need cardboard to maneuver the layers, and to sit underneath the final product. Plus, you need boxes to package them in. Anyway, I bought a case of 9" cake boards. 250 of them seems like a lot, however the unit price is much cheaper than what I've been paying buying them one-off at the local cake store. The things you learn!!

Anyhoo, it was exciting to me at least to see all this new stuff come in. I feel more professional just having ordered from a distributor of such things! Call me crazy.

The next item to buy in bulk is chocolate. I've been doing some research but have yet to pull the trigger and order. I spend far too much money (and get lower quality than I would like) buying chocolate at the grocery store. More on that quest another time, though.

Oh, I may have a cheesecake order for Thanksgiving. Bless my co-workers. They sure have sweet teeth!