7 Quick & Easy Kitchen Time-Savers

Many people can’t go a single morning without a cup of coffee. It’s the perfect drink to help you wake up and face the day, filling your body with life and energy before you step outside. However, when you’re in a bit of a rush, you might not have time to wait around and let your coffee cool down enough to drink. So, what can you do? Well, the next time you make a pot of coffee, try freezing some of it in an ice cube tray. This way, you’ll be able to add those ice cubes to your next cup of coffee, cooling it down quickly and efficiently, without taking anything away from the flavor. It’s way better than adding cold water.

Pancakes are a delicious treat at any time of the day, often enjoyed for breakfast by the whole family, and 99% of pancakes are made in the same roughly circular shape. Still, if you’d like to try something different, you don’t need to be a professional chef to make fun pancake shapes for your kids.
The key here is to make use of cookie cutters. Even though they’re designed for cookie dough, they work perfectly fine with pancake batter too. Simply line them up on your pan and pour in the pancake mixture. Kids absolutely love chowing down on pancakes shaped like animals and Christmas decorations, and you can experiment with cookie cutters of all different shapes and styles.

Gummy worms or gummy snakes are hugely popular with kids and a bit of a guilty pleasure for lots of grown-ups too, but you don’t always have to buy them from the store. You can make your own quite easily, using nothing but straws and a few simple ingredients, and it’s a great thing to try with your children.
To start off, grab some straws, a mason jar, food coloring, whipping cream, jello, and gelatin. Next, mix up the jello, gelatin, and food coloring with a few cups of hot water and let the mixture cool before adding the cream. Then simply pour the mixture into straws that have been tightly packed together in a mason jar and leave them to cool in the fridge.

There are times when we’re a little too busy or tired, to spend hours in the kitchen, cooking something long and laborious. It can be tempting, in these kinds of situations, to simply order some takeout or stop off at your local fast food joint, but a better solution can be achieved with nothing but a few zip-lock freezer bags.
All you need to do is prepare a little extra food next time you cook and then freeze some of it in bags. All the hard work of chopping veggies, marinating meats, and adding herbs and spices are already done, so all you need to do is heat the food back up and enjoy a tasty meal in a matter of minutes.

Ever tried making whipped cream? It’s really tiring. You usually have to place some cream into a bowl and then use either a manual or electric mixer or whisk to whip it up into a frothy, cloudy texture. It takes a long time and can be quite harsh on your muscles if you’re using the manual method, but there is another way.
For this hack, all you need is a mason jar and some heavy cream. To start off, pour the cream into the jar and then secure the lid on top. Next, simply start shaking the jar around as fast as you can. Within just a couple of minutes, you can open it up to find fluffy whipped cream inside.

Clementines are juicy treats for people of all ages, but they can be pretty tricky to peel. Often, you find yourself dealing with sticky hands and lots of little broken slices squirting juice all over the place. But there’s a little trick that can help you enjoy your clementines much more cleanly and easily.
For this trick, all you need to do is stop peeling the entire clementine. Instead, just get rid of the top, then cut out a single slice. From there, you can roll out the rest of the peel in one long strip, just like in the picture. It’s such a simple thing to do!

Here’s another top tip for the next time you decide to bake some cakes. Usually, you probably make cakes in the classic round shape. Still, there’s a very clever little trick you can try out to create beautiful heart-shaped cakes instead, perfect for special occasions like Valentine’s Day or for handing out as gifts to your nearest and dearest.
The trick here is to place a small marble or other heat-resistant object besides your cake or muffin liners, before or after filling them up with cake batter. The marble will push the liner inwards at an angle, allowing your cake to bake in a cute heart shape. Once the marbles are in place, all you need to do is bake your cakes as normal.