Baking Gadgets

I was making Valentine sugar cookies on Monday and I decided to take pictures so I could share with you my newest favorite cooking gadget.  It's my Roll'Pat mat.  I love it!  For those of you that roll out any kind of dough, this is a MUST!  It's one of the few things about the French that I admire.  Well, that and French fries.

The Roll'Pat requires little to no flour on the surface.  The mat sticks to the counter so you don't have to deal with a cutting board moving around.  The dough rolls out perfectly and scrapes off smoothly and easily.

I got my Roll'Pat from my husband for Christmas.  He bought it at Williams-Sonoma for the ridiculous price of $50.  But you can find them on Amazon.com for much cheaper, and I'm assuming it's basically the same product.

You also need a pastry scraper.  Yes you can get by with the flat side of a spatula, but it really doesn't work as well and you can't cut in butter or shortening with a  spatula.  So get one of these.

Finally, if like me, you have an oven that doesn't close properly, and loses lots of heat so that it doesn't stay to temperature, you need to invest in two "kid chairs".  They work wonderfully for keeping your oven closed.