A wire rack is a pretty essential baking tool. Beyond cooling cookies, it’s indispensable when decorating. It allows the chocolate on a truffle to drip down and away, creating an evenly coated candy; and it holds your cakes and pastries off the counter while you dust them with powdered sugar or drizzle them with icing. But it has even more to offer. Here are nine ways to get the most out of your humble wire rack.
Dice and smash soft foods
Push a bunch of avocados through your wire rack to dice ‘em up and make bulk guacamole (or avocado toast), then smash some eggs through the criss-crossed wires for an easier egg salad. You can also use your rack to chop bananas, crumble a bunch of feta, or mash and dice any other soft food that needs it.
Use a cooling rack as a makeshift trivet
Placing hot food directly on a table is not good for the table, but one only has so many trivets. If you find yourself with an excess of hot dishes, and don’t have enough hot pads or trivets to hold them all, grab your nearest wire rack to keep those casseroles off of your pretty wood surfaces.
Decorate your baked goods with ease
I cannot frost a cake with any real skill, but I am good at dusting powdered sugar on things. Give your cake or pan of brownies a chic, geometric look by placing a wire rack over the dessert before dusting with powdered sugar (or, if your cake is pale, cocoa powder).
Create shelving in your crowded fridge
No matter how big your fridge is, you will, at some point, run out of room. Chucking a wire rack in there gives you a bit of ersatz shelving for stacking your eggs, cheeses, meats and/or whatever else you keep in there.
Use it as a drying rack
I’m sure you have a drying rack, but sometimes one is not enough. If you find yourself with an embarrassment of wine glasses to dry, set a wire rack over a kitchen towel to let the water drip out. (Why not set the glasses directly over the towel? Because the water droplets will get trapped and create condensation, which is the opposite of drying.)
Remove the skins from a bunch of hazelnuts
Hazelnuts are delicious, but they can be a pain to peel; let a wire rack help you with that. Just roast them directly on a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet, let them cool, then rub them around the rack with your hands. The skins will fall off and into the sheet below, revealing a beautiful naked nut.
Turn your cake right-side-up
Flipping a cake onto a wire rack is the easiest way to get it out of the pan, but it will come out upside down. That’s not that big of a deal, as you can flip it around with the clever use of a second wire rack. Remove the cake from the pan like you usually would—loosen the edges with a knife, cover the pan with a rack, then flip the whole thing over—then place a second rack over the exposed bottom of cake, and flip it over once more.
Roast better vegetables
Roasting vegetables on a wire rack above your baking sheet allows air to get up under there, while letting moisture drip down and away from the food, maximizing crispiness.
Keep delicate food from falling through the grill grates
Grilling baskets and the like can keep small, delicate foods like asparagus and shrimp from falling through the grates, but I do not have one of those. Instead, I place a wire rack over my grill grates, giving the small stuff an extra layer of protection and keeping them off the coals.