Happy Valentines Day blogosphere! Cuddle up to your loved ones and eat lots of cookies, chocolates and Valentines yummies – because everyone knows calories don’t count on Valentine’s Day!
This Valentines Day, my handsome hubby and I made some cute heart shaped sugar cookies, with icing, sprinkles, and vanilla cookie letters on top! I had intended to make cupcakes with the letter cookies as toppings, but then I realized I forgot to buy cute Valentines Day baking cups. FAIL. But cookies on top of cookies?! Uhhhh, WIN!!
Now, I am not a good baker. AT ALL. My baking creations look more like science experiments gone wrong than anything you’d see on Pinterest… unless it’s one of those Pinterest memes that shows a gorgeous cookie, then a monstrosity, and says “Nailed it!”
So when Frieling offered to send me one of their specialty baking pans, I kind of hesitated. Can I do this? On the one hand, I am awful at baking. On the other hand, I want to get better, I want to have some fun kitchen gadgets on hand for future homeschool baking projects, and lastly.. if I can do it, then anyone can!
A Little Bit About Frieling and Zenker
I stumbled upon Frieling when looking for French presses. (I’m going on a huge coffee kick that you guys are going to be seeing a lot more of in the coming months.) Their overall quality and word of mouth reviews for kitchenware are extremely impressive. From their website:
“Driven by the vision to become a meaningful purveyor to the American hotel / restaurant industry, Frieling was established in New York in 1988 and relocated to Charlotte, NC, in 1990. Early on, Frieling also established a strong presence in the retail industry, thanks to an innovative and diverse product range for the discerning consumer. The two divisions complement each other in every respect.
We are fortunate to have earned not only the trust of our customers in North America and abroad, but also to have nurtured long-standing relationships with some of Europe’s best manufacturers in addition to our own collection. From Germany: Emsa, Cilio, ADE, Zenker, and Seltmann Porcelain. From France: Sitram. From Great Britain: Victorian Baking Ovens. From Switzerland: Durgol. Thanks to these strong alliances, frieling’s fresh solutions™ will be there for you for years to come and will continue to evolve and expand.
For 25 years Frieling has specialized in fresh solutions™. For the Frieling team that means passionately developing and sourcing functional and well-designed products of highest quality. Such a focused approach synergistically integrates several product categories, creating a convenient “one stop shop” for you. The development of the MILKchiller ™ is the quintessence of Frieling’s focus on providing solutions and thinking outside the box.”
My Thoughts On The ABC 123 Pan
The baking pan that Frieling sent me is a sturdy non-stick, coated carbon steel bakeware piece, that is oven safe up to 450 degrees. It is scratch resistant and fits easily into my pile of stored baking sheets and other kitchen goodies.
I was drawn to the pan because I am one of those people with AWFUL.. and I mean AWFUL handwriting. So when it comes to personalizing cakes, cookies or any other baked creations with a message, pre-formed letters are just the thing to make my creations take on a polished look. My chicken scrawl just doesn’t cut it in the “pretty icing on the cake” world.
The ABC pan is built to last, with a five year guarantee. When I opened the box containing my pan, I immediately had beautiful, classic movie style hazy daydreams of me baking Martha Stewart-esque personalized cakes and cookies for anniversaries, birthdays, Valentines Day and so on.
The Pros of the ABC Baking Pan –
– Baking time is quick! Roughly 5-8 minutes in the oven.
– Cookies slide out easily, with no prying or sticking or fussing.
– Fun for kids! A good family project and a great (and yummy!) homeschool project for teaching the alphabet.
– No need to freehand letters or numbers in baking projects.
The Cons of the ABC Baking Pan –
– Time consuming if you are trying to repeat a single message. Spelling out “Tessa” would require a minimum of baking two sheets (to get the two “S” cookies), and if I wanted to spell her name out more than once… well, you get the idea.
– Not all cookie recipes work with the pan. The form is shallow, and if cookies rise too much, the words bleed together, and holes in “O”s and “8”s disappear.
Our first batch of cookies I burned (oops!) but we ate them anyway, haha. I made a couple more batches, experimenting with the recipe.. and even tried using the form to try and make chocolate bars! (It worked, but I didn’t grease the pan enough and some of the letters broke when I took them out. Nooooo!) Anyway, making the cookies was crazy easy, and Frieling offers a simple vanilla cookie recipe at their website that works well for the form (click here to see it).
Awesome!! Now I want a cookie.
When I saw the image you had at the top, once again I thought you’d used a ‘stock photo’, then as I read, I thought the cookie sheet was for the hearts…wow, very cool letter/number pan! Tessa will have so much fun. The nice thing about the quick cook time would be doing multiple batches. I’m sure you’d have to let the pan cool down between batches tho. Well done!
I need to stop making so many tasty dessert for my blog, because I keep EATING cookies! lol! I’m glad my images look “stock photo”-esque.. I really had NO self-esteem going into a baking blog post… let alone a REVIEW! Glad to see my cookies look somewhat edible. 😉
This is so neat! I would love to get one and try it!