What is a wire cooling rack actually for?

This is one of the cheapest pieces of equipment in a kitchen and one of the most quietly useful, because it addresses a single problem that turns up everywhere: hot food sitting on a solid surface makes steam underneath itself, and that steam has nowhere to go.

Step by step

1. Cool cakes and biscuits on it.A hot sponge left in its tin or on a plate traps steam against its base, which goes damp and can stick. On a rack the steam escapes downwards and the cake cools evenly. Give a cake ten minutes in the tin first so it firms enough to move, then turn it out onto the rack.
2. Keep fried food crisp on it.Draining on kitchen paper works for a minute and then the underside sits in its own steam and softens. On a rack, air circulates and the crust stays crisp. Put a tray underneath to catch the drips, or set the rack on a folded sheet of kitchen paper on a tray.
3. Roast meat on it.A joint sitting on the base of a tin is frying on its underside in rendered fat and steaming where it touches. Lift it on a rack and hot air reaches all round, the skin crisps underneath as well as on top, and the fat and juices collect cleanly below for gravy. A bed of thick-cut onion and carrot does the same job and flavours the juices.
4. Rest meat on it.Resting on a plate means the underside sits in liquid and the crust you just built goes soft. A rack over a plate keeps the surface dry, and the juices collect where you can pour them into the gravy.
5. Use it as a grill rack and an oven rack.Any oven-safe wire rack in a tray converts a solid tray into an air-circulating one — for bacon, for roasting vegetables you want dry, for reheating anything breaded, and for finishing food under a grill so the fat drips away.
6. Use it for glazing and icing.Pouring a glaze or a ganache over a cake on a rack lets the excess run off cleanly onto the tray below, where it can be scraped up and reused. On a plate the cake sits in a pool.
7. Buy one that fits inside your tray.The most useful rack is the one that drops neatly inside your roasting tin or onto your standard baking tray. Check the dimensions against what you own. Stainless steel with closely spaced bars is worth more than a chrome-plated one with wide gaps that small things fall through — and chrome plating flakes at roasting temperatures.

Tips

• Check a rack is oven safe before roasting on it. Many cooling racks are chrome plated and are intended only for cooling; the plating can blister and flake at high heat. Stainless steel racks are fine in an oven.
• A rack with a tight grid is far more useful than a widely spaced one, because chips, biscuits and small pieces stay on it.
• Two stacked racks turned at right angles to each other make a fine mesh for small items if you only own wide-spaced ones.
• A rack sitting on a tray is the easiest way to reheat anything breaded in an oven without it going soft underneath.

Questions people ask