Of all the lifters, turners and spreaders taking up space in your most jumbled kitchen drawer, do you know which is the true spatula? Let's get the terminology straight, because it can help in following recipe writers' lingo: Spatula No. 1: According to Wilton Enterprises, a major bakeware distributor, the true spatula is a long, slender metal kitchen utensil with straight, even sides. It's used to spread frosting and to level dry ingredients in nested cups for proper measuring. Spatula No. 2: Actually a rubber scraper. Most commonly used to scrape mixing bowls clean and for folding ingredients together. A cook can't have too many of these. Cuisinart complicated things years ago by issuing a stiff-plastic scraper with every food processor. So then every kitchen drawer had to hold a flexible rubber scraper and a stiff plastic scraper. They do perform different tasks. Spatula No. 3: Really a pancake turner. This versatile tool can flip pancakes and burgers, remove cookies or cornbread from baking pans, and lift out portions of lasagna or cake squares. Of these, you need a metal one to be thin and sharp, plus a plastic one for going easy on nonstick skillets and baking pans. Spatula No. 4: A dough scraper. These may be shaped like a half-moon in thin plastic, or be a metal rectangle with wooden top-handle. Used to scrape dough from flat surfaces, such as after kneading bread on the kitchen counter, or rolling out pastry or cookie dough. You'll often see TV cooks cavalierly scrape the counter or bread board clean with one of these in a single swipe. But you can use a pancake turner for this, or a big square of cardboard. All about baking sheets Baking sheets are expensive. The old shiny aluminum sheets were stock merchandise, but no longer. There's so much choice these days. Here's the wisdom on selecting metal bakeware: Shiny, heavy-gauge aluminum baking sheets and pans are good heat conductors and will produce evenly baked cakes. Insulated baking sheets require a slightly longer baking time. Thin, dark metal baking pans tend to bake more quickly and unevenly, overcooking the outside of cakes and breads before the inside is done. Baking sheets of this metal darken the bottoms and edges of cookies. When using these dark metal baking pans, try reducing the oven temperature by 25 degrees to achieve more even browning.