Sink Your Fangs Into This! Wilton’s Just Batty Baking Pan
Written: Oct 08 '04
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Pros: Very cute bat pan, Wilton quality, serves at least ten people.
Cons: Can be a little tricky to decorate.
The Bottom Line: Get a little batty this Halloween with Wilton’s “Just Batty” Baking Pan!
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| Freak369's Full Review: Wilton Just Batty Baking Pan |
When it comes to Halloween, things get pretty hectic in my kitchen. Between making candy, preparing treat bags for the kids and trying out new recipes – I spend about four or five hours a day in the kitchen the last two weeks of the month. Even before that, I’m trying out new pans, mixes and checking to see which items need to be replaced. When I saw the new “Just Batty” items from Wilton I knew that, without a doubt, I’d be buying all of them – and the baking pan from the series was no exception. I have a small but growing collection of bat around my house; stuffed animals, cookie cutters, candles – you get the picture. Even if this pan turned out the be a complete bust, it would look cute as hell on the wall with the rest of the Halloween related pans, cutters and assorted baking items I’ve collected over the years. The ones that are too worn out or have tarnished are still used for decoration – slap on a orange or black bow, some dried corn stalk or glue on some candy corn and you have a very cute item to liven up the kitchen. I doubt this one is going to make it up on the wall as a decoration any time soon – it’s going to see a lot of use before it gets that honor.
Wilton Just Batty Baking Pan 2105-6411
I have a lot of different Halloween baking pans, over half of them are Wilton products – a name that I have grown to really trust over the years. Since I have a love of bats, this cute and comical one really made me laugh the first time I saw it at the Wilton Online Store. There’s a lot of detail to the mold and there are a number of different ways that you can decorate it but you have to really see this pan in person to get the most from it. On the same token you have to be willing to invest about an hour into decorating it to get it to look anywhere near what the Wilton cake designers have provided for the slap on paper instruction sheet. The easiest way to decorate this is to frost it with a basic light colored icing then use colored sugars to give it some detail and depth. If you want a real challenge you can whip up some individually colored frosting and do it that way but you are looking at about an hour, at least, to finish it off this way.
This is a single mix pan meaning that all you need to bake it is a single boxed cake mix. You can use what ever flavor or colored mix you like but I like to do a white or yellow batter and add some red food dye to it. To make thing even more gruesome, try adding some cherries [pits removed] or strawberries to the mix to not only give it color but an extra little surprise when people bite into it. If you do choose to add these kinds of things, make sure you note it on the finished product so those with food allergies will be aware of what’s in it. After experimenting with this, I found that a whole cake mix is a little too much so I leave out about three tablespoons – that might not sound like a lot but it’s just the way I’ve found I get the best results. You will need to trim down the back of the cake once it’s cooled off so you might lose up to an eighth of an inch off the bottom of it that way [I suggest. If you are going to take the long route in decorating this, make sure that you are working with a cake that is completely cooled and there aren’t any cracks in it from flipping it out of the pan or trimming the bottom. This is only about two inches deep so your final product won’t have a lot of height to it so don’t go crazy trimming the bottom of it to try and even it out. If worse comes to worse just take some dyed coconut and put it on some parchment paper – this way you can adjust the level of it to compensate for the uneven bottom.
The one thing that I really love about this, outside of being a bat, is that there are so many different ways that you can go about decorating it. When you pop it out of the pan and allow it to cool you will be able to see a good bit of the detail but if you just slap on some frosting or icing, most of it will get lost unless you add some color to it. It’s a fairly large pan, about thirteen inches wide and ten inches high – enough to serve about ten people some very nice sized pieces of cake. The first time I tried decorating this I really screwed it up and ended up ripping up the whole surface of the cake when I tried to use ‘from the can’ frosting that is just too stiff to work with. The second cake got home made frosting that I let stand for about a half hour after I mixed it up so it would be at room temperature. That one went much smoother and I ended up topping it off with some colored sugars. If you really want to get the most from this pan, invest in some sheets of plastic and use an X-Acto Knife to cut out a template so all you have to do is put the piece of plastic on the cat, sprinkle on the sugars and move on to the next layer. This is a great way to belt out a ton of cakes at once and a complete necessity for those who bake in bulk, do seasonal fundraising or have huge families.
Price
You can find this at places like Michaels for about eight dollars, the Wilton online store carries this for $7.99 which might seem a little pricy for a pan this size but if you are a lover of Halloween, you tend to overlook such things. For me this was a “must have” item so even if it cost more than eight dollars, I would have still pieced it up. There is a lot of nice detail to it and it’s of a good size but you’ll have to make the decision of whether or not you want to buy this type of pan or go with something a little more mainstream like a haunted house or easy to decorate ghost. This is an average price for a mold this size and it is a Wilton product so you are getting something that is going to last at least a few seasons providing that you take care of it.
Care & Clean Up
This pan is made of pressed aluminum so it is fairly sturdy and will hold up to a good bit of use but to preserve it and keep it from getting dented you will want to store it in a place where it isn’t going to get banged up or smashed. I store all my baking pans inside a large plastic tote where there’s no chance of them getting accidentally damaged or smashed. To clean this you will want to soak it in warm soapy water for about ten minutes then washout the inside of it with a soft sponge or use a toothbrush to get into the tight areas. I never put my molds in the dishwasher since I am pretty anal about their overall cleanliness and want to make sure that they are 100% clean before they get stored. I’ve washed this about five or six times and it still looks as good as when it was new, to keep it looking this way make sure you air dry it and check the edges and creases for water that may be left over.
The Bottom Line
Overall I’m really happy with this backing pan and I really hope that Wilton keeps up the line with more bat related products. This is medium level type of pan in regards to decorating it but a complete snap to fill and bake. You will want to use some type of cake release or the old oil and flour routine to make sure that your cake releases in one piece but outside of that you don’t really need to take and special measures to make sure that your cake comes out perfect. How you choose to decorate it is personal choice but there are more than a few ways you can go about doing it. If you are looking for a cute bat baking pan that will yield you about ten good sized slices, this is well worth checking out!
Have a safe & spooky Halloween …
~^V^ ~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2004 Freak369
Related Wilton Halloween & decorating reviews …
• Just Batty Lollipop Mold • Halloween Icing Colors • Spooky Ghost Party Bags • Dancing Skeletons Baking Cups • Halloween Sprinkle Mix • Copper Halloween Cookie Cutter Set • Spooky Cookie Cutter Set • Black Colored Sugars • Color Mist • Tombstone Candy Mold • Mini Ghost & Pumpkin Candy Mold • Fright Night Lollipop Mold • Dancing Skeletons Lollipop Mold • Jack O Lantern Canister Cookie Cutter Set • Mini Pumpkin Pan • Singles - Ghost Mini Pan • Singles - Bat Mini Pan • Haunted House Baking Pan • Monster Mansion Gingerbread House Kit • Halloween Candy Color Set • Just Batty Stencil-A-Cookie Set • Halloween Mini Stencils •
Special thanks to Mind-full for adding yet another Wilton product to the database for me!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $7.99
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