Bakeric Advice

	One of Life's minor annoyances is how the little crinkled pastry wrappers cling to their contents.  You fetch your petits fours* from the bakery, put them in the fridge, decant them later, and find icing remnants attached to the wrappers.  Waste!  (Yes, of course it's possible to consume the remnants, but it's a nuisance.  Fortunately the paper seems to be edible**.)
	This is an especially tragic case.  It typically requires dental gymnastics to rescue the icing, although its fate after "rescue" is no less chilling, at least to the icing.
	Here is an example of an alternative scenario - the icing remains attached to the pastry, but so does the paper.  Less waste, but more cellulose consumption.
	A Solution If you remove the wrapping immediately after bringing the petits fours home, and refrigerate them after, the wrapper has been pre-unstuck for your convenience, and the problem is solved. The photo at left illustrates this principle.  Only milligrams of icing remain unconsumable.
	Whoops!  Looks like one of them had an accident!

While the above photoessay is intended to help resolve the critical missing-sugar problem, the proper solution is to convince bakeries to employ non-stick wrappers instead of the low-tech, semi-absorbent ones used from time immemorial.  Think Avery label backing paper.  If I can find a used bakery crinkler on eBay, maybe I'll try it and file for a patent.

*Nothing herein is intended to imply that this procedure will only work on petits fours.  For example, a Sacher torte and others of its ilk are susceptible to the ministrations described in this blogitem.

**Warning.  Some bakery crinkly wrappers are manufactured in factories that also process tree nuts.
 

Follow-up 25 June 2006

From an expert on things confectionary:

Deb:
> Sticking the cakes in the fridge first makes the wrappers easier to remove
> later. BTW, cake should be eaten at room temperature.

Richard:
But:  Wouldn't that require time, both for heating and cooling?  Wouldn't that delay the inevitable "accidents"?