"kitchen tool" news and stories

The butter slicer we saw a couple of days ago might be helpful when you're baking and are trying to cut off just the right amount for your recipe, but its not the most practical tool to have around when you just want to butter your toast. The One Click Butter Cutter is somewhat unnecessary if you own a knife, but is a useful gadget in its own way, not to mention that it's fun to use. With the push of a button, it dispenses one standard "pat" of butter - slightly less than 2/3 tsp, so you get 5 pats per tablespoon of butter. You can store a stick of butter in the butter cutter in the refrigerator, so it is always ready to go.

The gadget could come in handy at breakfast or when you're cooking and need to grease the pan, just for sheer convenience. In addition, it is a great way to consistently use portion control with butter, since you know exactly how much you're going to get from each slice without having to measure it out yourself.

[via book of joe]

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Many an egg has been discarded after an unsuccessful poaching attempt. The eggs cook, but even after following every trick you've heard about adding vinegar, swirling the water around and using various cups to drop the egg in exactly the right place, eggs still manage to come out looking less than perfect. Using an egg poacher will help you get cleaner shape, with no tendrils of egg white snaking off into the water, but using a Flower Shaped Egg Poacher will get you a more interesting one. Made of nonstick metal, the poacher will release the eggs onto your plate as easily as it cooks them. It may not make a traditionally-shaped poached egg, but will add an interesting touch to your breakfast plating.

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There are many bakers who use a cookie scoop to ensure that their cookies come out to be the exact same size with each batch they bake. For a professional baker, the tool can be helpful because it guarantees that they will get the exact number of cookies that they need from a batch of dough. For a home baker, it simply means that baking times will be standardized and the finished cookies will all be evenly done.

But because some find the useful, it doesn't mean that scoops are necessary objects. I don't like using cookie scoops at home, despite the fact I have several different kinds. I don't find that they work well, even when I use warm water to rinse them between every few scoops, because dough will inevitably stick to them. I get results that are just as good - evenly portioned and evenly baked - when I simply "eyeball" the sizes of my cookie dough balls.

Scoops are a great idea for kids, though. They have a hard time measuring out the dough by eye and will end up with cookie dough in fewer places (hair, clothing, etc), if their hands aren't directly touching the dough. There is an added bonus of your child having their very own "special" tool in the kitchen, which will probably encourage them to come in and help out more often.

The classic wedge shape of a pie server and its rectangular counterpart, the cake server, rarely change much in appearance from model to model and brand to brand. Like many kitchen tools, they are designed for function and not to have a stylish edge. For anyone interested in fashion, this fact makes servers boring because the designs of almost every other piece of cookware and tableware, including plates, measuring cups and appliances, change from year to year, if not season to season like designer apparel does. Those fashion-conscious individuals, who want to serve their cake and eat it too, will love the Shoe/Handbag Server Set. The sliver plated pieces are shaped like a high-heeled shoe and a handbag, giving a version fashionable look to a functional tool.

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When it comes to cooking, grills are no more than tools. As long as the tool you have is functional, it's how you use it that counts when cooking. A taste test between rib-eye steaks cooked on a $1,600 Firestone Legacy grill and a Big Green Egg charcoal grill/smoker that was less than half of that price confirms this theory: almost all tasters preferred the meat cooked with the Egg.

Of course, the reason that tasters preferred the Egg steaks was because they had a slightly smoky/woodsy flavor from the charcoal, which was not present with the larger gas grill, and the tasters liked their meat that way. The point is that both grills performed well, cooking the steaks evenly despite their differences in price. The specific flavor preference of the tasters, while an interesting addendum to the gas vs. charcoal debate, has nothing to do with the functionality of the grill.

I'm sticking with my gas grill because I like the way it works and am not a huge fan of charcoal flavors in my everyday foods. But whether you like charcoal or gas, as long as you buy a well-made grill and not necessarily an expensive one, you are bound to have more than a few good meals.

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