A cooling rack is an essential piece of bakeware for anyone who bakes frequently. Cooling racks create a place for your baked goods to cool evenly and prevent over-baking caused by continued transfer of heat from the bakeware. Choosing the right cooling rack largely depends on the type of baking you do most often. Unless you are fortunate enough to have unlimited storage space in your kitchen, you should choose the most versatile cooling rack for your baking needs.
There are many different sizes and shapes of cooling racks. Most are a wired design, allowing you to transfer your baked goods directly to the rack for cooling, but a few are designed like an open shelf and meant simply to hold the entire baking sheet or pan. The design you choose should depend largely on personal preference, but most people prefer to use the wired cooling rack for cookies because it free up cookie sheets between batches and also prevents over-baking.
If you bake primarily cookies, you might want a stackable or multi-tiered wired cooling rack. This will take up less counter space, but still allow room for the most cookies or baked goods. If you find you primarily bake cakes, you may choose to invest in a round cooling rack designed just for round cakes. These are smaller and simpler to store, but will limit your use to only goods baked in round pans. The most versatile choice of a single cooling rack is a set of rectangular racks that can be stacked together.
Cooling racks in general are not expensive, and you might want to purchase a couple of different ones to accommodate a variety of baking purposes. The only things to keep in mind before buying a cooling rack or racks are how much storage space you have, the amount of counter space you have, and the versatility of each model. Ease of cleaning is also a consideration, and you might want to make sure your cooling rack will fit in your dishwasher if you do not plan to wash it by hand.
