Some of my favourite tools

I've been thinking about posting a tribute to my favourite tools for a while now, especially since I haven't been baking much in the last few weeks.  Not that I've stopped baking completely - I've made many old faves since January - but the craziness of Christmas baking is over until December rolls around again.  Next weekend I'll be making lots of treats for my office buddies and decorated sugar cookies for some adorable little kids.

These are my absolute favourite tools - the All-Clad graduated measuring cups and spoons, which my daughter gifted me for Mother's Day two years ago.  Until that time, I was using a set of spoons and cups from X-ess Cargo (seriously, that's how they spell it) that cost 99 cents per set.  I should have know that a cheapo set wouldn't have truly accurate measurements, but didn't realize how off they were until I started using the new set.

Image Courtesy of Williams-Sonoma

Aren't they gorgeous?  I never, ever put them in the dishwasher and, for me, that's saying something!  Not only are they beautiful in their simplicity, but they are *heavy*!  Since All-Clad makes some of the best cookware on the market, you can actually use the one cup measure on the stove to melt butter, it's that heavy.

Another item that I find really useful is a Tupperware pastry rolling mat.  It displays the sizes for lots of pie pastry and lists of measures around the edges of the mat.  Not nearly as pretty, but so very practical:

Image Courtesy of Google.com

I also like that the mat is red... ;)