Kitchen Upgrades

As I've increased the volume of baking I'm doing each week, it's become apparent to me that it's time to upgrade some of my common kitchen tools. Oh darn. I'll have to go shopping.

My extremely generous aunt recently mailed me several Amazon.com gift certificates after cashing in her AMEX points and realizing she couldn't figure out how to use the darned things (we're still working on getting her into the 21st Century- stand by). As I'm sure you all know, Amazon is a catchall for, well, everything. I typed "Baking" into the search and found my own little Utopia.

My first big box o'baking bliss arrived several weeks ago, much to my excitement! Among my many goodies were three new paintbrushes from Wilton. Now, don't get me wrong, I am a huge Wilton fan. I think the majority of their products are well made, visually appealing, and really easy to use. But I am sorely disappointed by these puppies; I used them twice before they found their new home in the trash can.

The brushes were purchased to assist with decorating my hand painted sugar cookies. In my brushless days, I was using a Ziploc bag filled with icing as a pastry bag, but smaller details were really tough and I needed something with more control. The first brush use was great; I was able to fill in small details and add real character to my cookies. After using them, I of course, took them to the sink for a good washing. As soon as the pretty purple-painted wooden handles hit the hot water, there were little paint chips all over my sink. Not was I was expecting.

I used the brushes again to decorate sugar cookies for The Bully (photos are in a previous posting), but I again found the paint chipping off, this time in large chunks. I had to maneuver carefully to make sure none of it landed in the icing- no extra flavoring needed!

Needless to say, I do not recommend buying Wilton's set of three brushes, no matter how cute they look in their packaging. As for me, I've recently stumbled upon Sweetopia (thank you, Kelly) and I'm going to try her methods of sugar cookie decorating before I run out to get more brushes. And if I do get more brushes, I'm trying out acrylic brushes from the paint section at A.C. Moore. Hopefully a safer bet.