This Is the Luxury Parking Garage of Cooling Racks
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: when I get to eat triple my body weight in homemade cookies! It’s also, historically, the most stressful time of the year because I need to batch and bake a lot of cookies to swap. And because I wrote a cookbook on what to bring, I am now legally obligated to have all the answers for holiday-baking season.
After faking it for years, I finally found something that helps make holiday baking (plus any and all baking) an absolute breeze. This collapsible cooling rack has completely altered my life. My apartment is limited on counter space, and I used to balance sheet trays anywhere they’d fit: a windowsill, on top of the dish rack, sometimes even inside the microwave. It was a terrible game of Jenga. This rack is like the luxury parking garage of cooling racks.
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It has four sturdy levels and three height settings, so I can cool cookies fresh off the baking sheet, park a couple of steaming pies, rest cake layers in their pans, even find a safe home for a hot skillet — or any combination of those things at once (each tier can hold up to 22 pounds). When it’s open, it actually looks kind of chic, like a little sculpture of efficiency. And this is the best part: When I’m done, it folds down into a compact two-inch-thick bundle that slides neatly into my cabinet.
Baking days are now — dare I say it? — a joy. I measure my life in B.C. (before cooling rack) and the present day, when my kitchen is streamlined and I feel like a very competent version of myself. With the cooling rack tucked to one side, I have so much room to mix ingredients, roll out dough, cut cookies, and prep the next batch. This rack lets me live my multitasking dreams, and I’m a total doofus for not getting it sooner.
I gave the rack a test run when I had to make 120 cookies for Natasha Pickowicz’s bake sale in October, so I already know it’s ready to tackle the holidays. Instead of balancing a hot tray on my radiator and praying it doesn’t fall, I can bake and cool dozens of cookies without breaking a sweat. This one small upgrade has turned what used to feel like a production into something that’s fun again. It won’t make you a better baker, but it will make you a calmer one — and during the most wonderful (and hectic) time of the year, that’s a gift in itself.
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