Pumpkins, Black Cats & Ghosts Oh My! Ateco’s Halloween Baking Cups Are The Cats Meow!
Written: Apr 12 '05
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Pros: Several sizes to choose from, nice patterns, sturdy, inexpensive.
Cons: Only available in the 200 count packages.
The Bottom Line: Need to bake a ton for Halloween? Never fear, Ateco is here!
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| Freak369's Full Review: Ateco Halloween Baking Cup |
Halloween is a special time of year for me; a time to mark the changing of the seasons and drag out all the decorations, spooky items and costumes from years gone by. If you’ve read any of my reviews in the Home & Garden section, mostly Wilton products, you’ll know that I take baking seriously. I am always on the look out for new things to add to my Halloween baking line up and the designs from Ateco are simple but very cute. Since they come in packages of 200 these are great for people who are doing fundraisers or need to have a lot of liners on hand to get the job done but don’t want to spend a lot of money in the process. I got to use these last year when I did some last minute baking and they worked just as well as the Wilton and Reynolds ones for baking and serving up snack cups. No doubt, this year I’ll be checking to see if they added any new designs or themes to the line up but I’ll have to order them online since the east coast hasn’t yet discovered the wonderful world of Smart & Final shopping!
Ateco Halloween Baking Cups
Since I am such a fanatic about Halloween items and baking I couldn’t pass up trying out the Ateco cups when I came across them at Smart & Final last year. I really wished that they came in a smaller sized package but most of the time when you are shopping at places like this, it’s geared towards people who have business or cook / bake in bulk. I really wanted to see if they were as strong and durable as the Wilton ones I’d been using and to put it bluntly, I really can’t pass up picking up something new for Halloween. I didn’t pay attention to the sizes on the boxes when I tossed them in the cart so I ended up with two of the large [standard] sized cups and one of the smaller ones. This wasn’t a major deal for me because I have both three different sized cupcake pans but if I didn’t I would have been able to use the smaller ones for anything more than holding candy treats, peanuts or M&M’s.
Sizes
The Halloween baking cups come in two sizes, small and standard. The small isn’t much smaller than the standard size but you will want to know ahead of time which is which when it comes time to buy them from a store or online because the small ones won’t fit into the standard size baking pans and visa versa. The smaller of the two sizes is one and three quarter inches by one inch high and the larger one is two inches by one and a quarter inch high. Those measurements might not sound like a huge difference but if you have the wrong sizes cupcake pan it could be a disaster. Either one will give you nice looking treats but it’s pretty important to get the right size to start with. There aren’t any dividers between the liners [some companies add these to protect the main liner from getting damaged when removing them from the stack] so it’s a pretty simple process of getting them into the cupcake pans and ready to go.
Designs
So far I have only seen three designs from Ateco’s Halloween line and all three are available in both the small and standard size. The first is a purple star and orange pumpkin variety that looks nice on the white background. The second is a solid purple cup with orange pumpkins and the last is white with ghosts, cats and pumpkins. All three of them are nicely detailed and look great when on a serving tray but my person favorite has to be the one with the ghosts, cats and pumpkins. What really impressed me about these is that the colors remained bright after baking and even when there were some grease spots, they were hardly noticeable thanks to the designs and thickness of the paper.
Cost
These were priced at $ 3.49 at my local Smart & Final which is a pretty good deal for 200 liners. If you went with the major name ones you would be paying about a dollar or two more for the same amount so you can save some cash buying them “in bulk”. The Ateco brand isn’t very popular outside of the wholesale store system so you may have to look online for them if you don’t have a price club or wholesale restaurant supply store in your area. In that case you might not get to pick the design that you get but you will want to make sure that you order the right size.
The Bottom Line
If I took a handful of Wilton, Ateco and Reynolds cupcake liners, baked a mix in them and served them up chances are most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the three – that is unless they knew the designs from each company. I used these for brownies, cupcakes and treat cups and they worked out just great. I didn’t see any real difference between these and the ones from other companies except it cost me less in the long run. If you are planning on making cupcake or treat cups for a Halloween school function, fundraiser or party this is definitely the most cost effective way to go. They might be hard to find in some areas but there are a ton of online stores that carry the Ateco products but this is a seasonal item so you might not be able to get your hands on them until the end of summer / September.
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2005 Freak369
Other Halloween items …
• Jack O Lantern Canister Cookie Cutter Set • Mini Pumpkin Pan • ”Just Batty” Lollipop Mold • Black Colored Sugars • Tombstone Candy Mold • Ghost Mini Pan • Mini Ghost & Pumpkin Candy Mold • ”Fright Night” Lollipop Mold • Halloween Icing Colors • Dancing Skeletons Lollipop Mold • Wilton Singles - Bat Mini Pan • Haunted House Baking Pan • Halloween Sprinkle Mix • ”Just Batty” Baking Pan • Halloween Lollipop Kit • Spooky Ghostly Party Bags • Halloween Mini Stencils • Halloween Lollipop Sticks • ”Just Batty” Stencil-A-Cookie • Halloween Candy Color Set •
Other Ateco product reviews …
Ateco Parchment Paper
Ateco Bowl Scraper
Ateco Cannoli Kit
Ateco Cookie Spatula
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): see review
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