More for your perusal: CRANBERRY COFFEECAKE 1 cup (2 sticks) butter 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/2 tsp. almond extract 2 cups flour 3 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 1 cup sour cream 1 can (8 oz.) whole cranberry sauce 1/2 cup chopped nuts Glaze: 1 cup confectioners sugar 2 Tblsp. milk 1/2 tsp. vanilla Heat oven to 350° F. Grease a 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan. In large mixing bowl, cream butter. Gradually add sugar; beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs, beating well. Mix in almond extract. Stir in flour alternately with sour cream. Pour batter into prepared pan. Spoon cranberry sauce evenly over batter; spread slightly, but do not try to cover batter. Sprinkle with nuts. Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until cake pulls slightly away from sides of pan. Drizzle with Glaze. Serve warm. Glaze: Combine all ingredients and stir until smooth. CREAM CHEESE & STRAWBERRY COFFEE CAKE 1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese or reduced-fat cream cheese, softened 1 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour 2 eggs 1/4 cup milk 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 1 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/4 tsp. salt 1/2 cup seedless strawberry preserves Sifted powdered sugar In a large mixing bowl beat cream cheese, granulated sugar, and butter or margarine with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Add half of the flour, the eggs, milk, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat for about 2 minutes or until well mixed. Beat in remaining flour on low speed until well mixed. Spread batter evenly in a greased and floured 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Spoon preserves in 8 to 10 portions on top of batter. With a knife, swirl preserves into batter to marble. Bake in a 350° F. oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Cool slightly on a wire rack. Sift powdered sugar on top. Cut into squares; serve warm. Garnish with fresh mint and strawberries if desired. Makes 12 servings. KILLARNEY CAKE 1/2 cup butter or other shortening 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 2 cups flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1 cup sour cream 1 tsp. vanilla Topping: 1/2 cup white sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar 1 Tblsp. cinnamon 1/2 cup chocolate chips 1/2 cup chopped nuts Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 baking pan. Cream sugar and butter. Alternately add eggs and flour with dry ingredients and sour cream. Add vanilla (batter will be thick). Spread half of batter in bottom of pan. Sprinkle with half of topping. Spread other half of batter and sprinkle remaining topping over the top. Bake for 30 minutes. YEASTED CAKE MIX COFFEE CAKE 1 pkg. (18.25 oz.) yellow cake mix, divided 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 pkg. Active dry yeast 2/3 cup warm water (120° to 130° F.) 2 eggs, lightly beaten 1 can (21 oz.) fruit pie filling of your choice 1/3 cup cold butter Glaze: 1 cup confectioners sugar 1 Tblsp. Corn syrup 1 to 2 Tblsp. Water In a large mixing bowl, combine 1-1/2 cups dry cake mix, flour, yeast, and water until smooth. Stir in eggs until blended. Transfer to a greased 13- x 9- x 2-inch baking dish. Carefully spoon pie filling over top. Place remaining cake mix in a bowl; cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over filling. Bake at 350° F. for 35 to 40 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack. Combine glaze ingredients; drizzle over coffee cake. Yield: 12-16 servings.

LOL!!!! KD, I think the guys I'm thinking of were using their mixers for thinks like waffle batter (I just use a whisk for that), cupcakes (good Daddy), and stiff peaked eggwhites for baked omelettes. That would be an interesting thread, though. ... What's the weirdest thing you ever made in your mixer? :) Kaysd said it well--the memorable big ticket item is it exactly. Especially nowadays when they give couples the scanner gun and they pick things like spatulas, they may get a lot of matched things and stuff they need, but a couple of young recent brides I know have felt kind of let down by a lot of their gifts. Not unappreciative, but just kind of flat. They were all things off the registry, in the store's standard wrapping. No surprises, not many Wow gifts. Generous ones were more of the box full of stuff variety than the single memorable big ticket one. No clever gifties at the shower. Not many really special things for the wedding. It's all very efficient, but there aren't the warm memories. When I was in college and couldn't afford an expensive shower gift, I got some utensils and a box grater at the dime store and wired them together to make a robot. For a wedding, I'd give what I called the "crystal gift certificate". That's a small crystal (or silver, or whatever) serving piece that fit my budget, which could be easily exchanged. They never were exchanged, however. Sometimes, that was the only "fine" piece the couple got and they loved to have it. I can afford to give lovely presents now, but I try to put as much thought and effort into them as I did when I had to be clever. That's what people love and remember. It's not really about the stuff. It's about helping the new couple create a home and giving them lasting things that will bring lovely memories to them over the years as they use them.

Thank you for your replies everyone! I got to test drive a 48" Bluestar Platinum range this week. I was so excited to do be able to do this! Hummm. I was wanting so much to LOVE this thing, but it didn't happen. Here is my assessment: + -Oven heated fairly quickly -Cooking on the burners was an awesome experience. Wonderful, really. They gave off more heat than I'm used to standing over. ; ) -The way that the grates can be quarter turned to raise and lower your pans over the flame is ingenious. Loved this feature. -Wok cooking was incredible. (Too bad the wok that the showroom provided for the test drive was nonstick. Ick.) -I was impressed with how some of the burners could be swapped out for a grill and griddle. How cool is that! -The griddle did a nice job on the eggs that I fried on it. It was pretty even in temperature across the surface. (But there is a negative side to this one; see below.) -I didn't find the doors to be intolerably hot. I wouldn't have hesitated to use this in a house with young children. (I was also ok with having a wood stove in our home without a barricade with our young children playing nearby, so YMMV.) - -Oven was VERY uneven for baking. Believe me, I tried to make it work. I did multiple batches of cookies (about 12 dozen of my favorite fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies.) I rotated pans. I turned the oven down, thinking maybe we had accidentally set it too hot. I tried pulling the cookies out earlier. I tried baking the cookies on different racks. I think I tried it with without convection. I tried the small oven. Not one batch had the quality or evenness that I was looking for. : ( This was a HUGE disappointment to me. I wish I had taken my standard Air Bake sheets with me. The full size stainless steel sheet pans that the showroom provided had a lip on them that the salesman said might have been affecting performance. (?) (If I was him trying to sell these stoves, I'd invest in some pans that wouldn't hinder baking results!) My Maytag Gemini, which I think only does mediocre in the baking department, gives me better baking results than this unit that costs nearly 10k. -While I liked how the griddle cooked, I did not like the design of it. I suppose it was necessary, but the rectangular shaped vent hole (and also the hole that grease would drain through) was in the front right corner of the griddle. Burning hot air gushed through this hole. I'm right handed, and several times when I reached across it to flip the eggs, I was concerned that I might get burned. I didn't, but it was very uncomfortable to work over that spot. Lefties might not have the same problem, at least, not until they tried to use the ridged side of the griddle. Rotating the griddle would not help any, since there is a vent hole in the opposite corner that lands in the exact same place when rotated. -I could smell gas while using the appliance. Not enough to make me gag, but it was certainly noticeable to this pregnant mama's nose. Sales associate said this comes with the territory with this type of stove. (?) -The oven racks did not glide easily at all. They grated, and we really had to tug to get them out and reposition them. I've since read that the way that the Platinum heats the back of the oven can cause the racks to warp. Yikes. I came away from the whole deal rather disenchanted. Like I said, I really wanted to adore the range. If I had, my precious DH would have gotten us one. But he wants me to LOVE it. I. just. couldn't. love. it. I almost could have cried. It was a bit of a bitter disappointment. I am VERY thankful we got to try it out and experience the shortcomings without being invested in it in our own kitchen.

It's true that there is some insulation effect, but there also is, if not as much, with glass and pyroceram. Corningware is supposedly made of the stuff they created to cover space ship nose cones and protect them from the heat of friction with the atmosphere, or something like that. Steel is a conductor, but a relatively poor one. There shouldn't be more than a 10 minute, at the outside, difference in cook times for a lasagna in any of them, and likely less to none. Checking the oven is a great idea. Though...since stoneware works fine for bread and smaller things, it's potentially a preheating problem. Pink, how long do you preheat your oven for? It's well known that when the air at the sensor is at the correct temperature for the pre-heat signal to go off, the entirety of the oven, the walls, etc., often isn't completely hot. This is true with convection ovens as well, though not as dramatically since the convection speeds the heating time. I can see how with the mass of a big lasagna and the insulating effect that Ci_lantro pointed out, the stoneware might take relatively longer in an oven that had just barely come to heat. If you wanted to give it one last try, heat the oven for at least an hour, and set the stoneware dish by a sunny window in the morning, or put it somewhere else warm to come up to at least room temperature before building the lasagna, it might make a difference.