pretty by the bay

Oh, how I love kitchen gadgets. They make cooking and baking infinitely more fun. But sometimes I refuse to buy in to the latest trends, because tried and true methods are either a) more logical, b) less expensive, or c) a combination of both. Example:

I never understood why these were necessary when I have a perfectly good muffin tin and $2 paper liners. But even those traditional methods have their flaws. The liners look cute and homey, but sometimes stick to the cake. Using the tin without liners is very Ina Garten, but often results in prying the muffins out with a crowbar. So, after finding these baking cups at a major clearance sale, I decided to give them a test run using a simple boxed muffin mix.

Fill. Bake. Pop out. So easy, even a non-baking city planner can do it.

I like my baked goods to look neat and orderly, so for this reason alone I’m excited to use these again. Especially for cupcakes. I love the look of liner-less cupcakes, but as previously mentioned, it’s damn near impossible to pry them out of the pan and keep them intact. Plus, using these made me feel very environmentally friendly, as I wasn’t using 12 disposable muffin liners!

(OK, that’s a total lie. Using these made me feel like a 30-year-old child playing with a giant Easy Bake Oven. They’re pink and purple and shiny and fun!)