Those old HowTos probably don't work anymore, because Raspbian just changed it's desktop environment to pixel.
To restore the content of your Application Launch Bar (that's the name of the area containing those quick start icons), you need to right click on the panel (e.g. on the start menu button in the top left corner) and select "Add/Remove Panel Items". In the window that opens, select "Application Launch Bar" from the list and click either "Preferences" to add new icons to the panel and/or "Add" to bring the Application Launch Bar back to the panel (in case you didn't just remove its contents, but the whole bar altogether).