We all know that when it comes to baking, it's important to be exact in your measurements. There's a world of difference between a heaping teaspoon and a perfectly leveled one. Too much baking powder in your cookie batter will potentially result in bitter cookies and odd leavening. And while the old system of using a butter knife to level your measuring spoons does work, the lazy among us often skip this step, haphazardly leveling their spoons with a finger or a few well-placed taps.
However, salvation has arrived, in the form of Self-Leveling Measuring Spoons. These measures have a sliding lever that scrapes off the excess and ensures that you always have the exact amount of baking powder, soda or cinnamon. I have about ten sets of measuring spoons, so I'll probably skip this set for now. However, for the people who do a whole lot of precision baking, I can see how these would make a great addition to their array of tools.
I am in heaven. First I find flame decals for my Kitchen Aid. Now I've found the best web site ever, at least in my opinion.
Pastry Chef Central has everything a pastry chef (or geek) could ever want! The site is basically split up into two sections: tools and ingredients. The tools section has several categories each filled with wonderful, beautiful toys, I mean tools. The ingredients section doesn't have any sub-sections, but it doesn't need any as it's choc full of lovely and fantastic things necessary for all manner of delicious desserts.
There's a third section, actually. It's a resource area with recipes and an "Ask the Chef" link.
The site is great. It's easy to read and follow. It's neat and clean, as any pastry web site should be. Best of all, Pastry Chef Central has lots of pictures! Can you actually see me drooling? Does anyone have any other pastry/baking websites to share?
It's just a concept right now, but I am very much looking forward to the day when a very bad chicken pisses me off and I can just do a quick draw Dirty Harry-style, point and blow that bird to Kingdom Come. With oregano.
The Spice Gun has a trigger that, when pulled, compresses the air in the air bag. The handspike will push the bottom of the seasoning bottle to make the nozzle in the turntable retract and spray the seasoning. Sure, it seems like a lot of machine effort for something we normally do with our bare hands, but hey, what's the fun in that? There's a reason we love those giant flavor injector syringes, too.
Chances are that if you're a Slashfoodie, your kitchen's drawers and cabinets are overflowing with gadgets, tools and equipment that you use all year already. However, for those of us who rely on a single chef's knife and a pair of chopsticks to do just about everything in the kitchen, there are some certain tools that you might want to pick up between now and the Big Day to help with the Thanksgiving preparations. Things like brining bags and flavor injectors aren't necessary, but they do enhance, and other things like turkey slings and fat separators aren't required, they're just nice to have to make roasting turkeys and making gravy easier.
The one thing I'm just not so sure about? The Stuffing Cage. Just the name alone...
Not every home cook is content with working with the usual tools of the home kitchen, especially not if they follow the ideas and techniques of molecular gastronomists like Grant Achatz or Ferran Adria (or Steven and Marcel from Top Chef, for that matter). Wired has come up with a gift list for cooks interested in practicing nanogastronomy in their own home.
The first, and most obvious, gift that they suggest is a trip to one of the havens of molecular gastronomy, like El Bulli in Spain, Alinea or Moto in Chicago, WD-50 in New York, or The Fat Duck in England. Heston Blumenthal's Kitchen Chemistry includes a cd with video clips to help provide visuals for the technical information included in the book. Once the basics are in place, all the would-be chef needs are tools. Try an insulated whipped cream maker for experimenting with hot and cold mousses, a vacuum sealer for sous vide cooking or a dehydrator (also useful for raw foodists who need gifts) for turning otherwise wet foods into powders and garnishes.
Add another product to the list of things that have going pink in support of breast cancer awareness. This special edition set of Mundial knives is a ten piece set and includes seven knives, a carving fork, kitchen shears and the wood block holder to keep everything organized. One of the included knives is a granton edge santoku knife, one of the most popular models available, and this is the first Mundial set to include it.
Even though the set was created in honor of the company's partnership with the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the charmingly feminine pink color of the set should make it appealing to many for purely aesthetic reasons. In other words, whether you intend to support the cause or not, a girly set of kitchen knives is a nice change from the basic black of most manufacturers.
Legos are an icon of childhood for most of us, whether you were the one building elaborated fantasy worlds or your children are/were. Like just about every other product you can think of, Lego seizes just about any opportunity for merchandising that it sees and has moved out of the playroom and into the kitchen. Earlier this year, we saw some Lego Eggos, but now the company is offering us real kitchen gear, like ice cube trays shaped like Legos and salt and pepper shakers shaped - somewhat disturbingly - as Lego-men heads. They also have a Lego Apron, which is not made of Legos, but features the classic body of a Lego person on it, a set of Lego coasters and Lego corkscrews for opening wine (probably not something you want your kids to see in case they mistake them for toys).
All this Lego gear is a lot of fun to have around and definitely gives a new twist to playing with your food. The only way that this stuff could be more fun is if the ice cubes were stackable, though it should only take a little water to get them to stick together long enough to build a small tower. You'll need more than one tray for a fort.
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 severaldifferentkinds. 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.
We've seen the pizza belt before and know of a Jello belt, citrus belt and corn belt, but a barbecue belt? Of course, geographically speaking a barbecue belt would probably cover most of South and Southwest, although this particular version will just cover your waistline. It is a handy way for a 'cue-lover to have all their tools at the ready. The tools aren't included, but don't you already have them?
The belt is made of 100% cotton canvas and has a hook for tongs, a holder for the spatula, pockets for seasonings, sauces and condiments, and a beer holder. Because we all know it's important to have beer on hand at a barbecue. You know, for marinades and such...
Chefs don't always keep all their gear in the kitchen. Many will want to keep a closer eye on their favorite, personal knives than the kitchen allows and others simply travel a lot. As you might imagine, getting around with a bunch of knives isn't as simple as it looks, given that you can't simply tuck them into a pocket. The NY Times magazine took a look at how chefs on-the-go store their stuff. The cases range from standard, hardware-store tool kits to custom-made Italian leather pouches. Barbara Lynch, a Boston chef, converted a gardener's tool kit (pictured above), which proved to be so popular with other cooks that she is coming out with her own line of similarly designed cases specifically for chefs.
Because you can't look at the case without taking a peek inside, the NY Times also looked into what stuff the chefs were storing, from chopsticks and tasting spoons, to knives and pastry tools. One of the more important inclusions for a busy chef? Burn cream.
It's hard to say precisely why grilling and golf seem to be the two most popular themes for Father's Day, but we're not complaining because this BBQ set is fantastic. The 5-piece set was designed with golf in mind, for someone who loves the sport but also likes to cook. All the handles are soft and insulated, modeled after the handles on real clubs, and top cylindrical, stainless steel shafts that end in the grilling tools. There is a spatula shaped like a club, grilling fork and tongs that have a remarkably golf ball-like look to them. In addition, the set includes two plastic golf ball salt and pepper shakers.
It is a myth that only women want chocolate - guys like it just as much. Dean & Deluca must have someone working for them who knows this and came up with a cute way to package chocolate up as a suitable Father's Day gift. While most dads are getting ties or yet another set of socket wrenches, you can get your dad some tools that he'll really enjoy: chocolate tools. The "set" includes three wrenches, needle-nose pliers and a couple of nuts and bolts. All are made out of 56% cocoa chocolate, which should be pleasing to the taste buds of both milk and dark chocolate lovers. The tools are also dusted in cocoa powder, which D&D says gives them a "rusty" look, though most chocolate fans would probably just say it makes them look even more delicious.
Baking can be a hazardous sport if you don't have the right equipment. I don't know how many times I've burned
myself trying to take a tin of muffins or a
heavy cookie sheet out of the oven, holding onto it with a worn oven mitt or worse, a kitchen towel, frantically
looking for a place to set it down. (I won't mention how many times I've also burned my mouth impatiently
"tasting" something 350 degrees right out of the oven!)
Silicone oven mitts are awesome, as they don't seem to wear out like regular fabric ones do. These mitts
from HearthSong are cute, too, which means baking chocolate chip cookies with the kids will be that much more fun. I
kinda wish they had a pig, though.
According to an Australian animal behavior scientist, beef cattle use objects in their immediate surroundings to
preen. After observing cows in several pastures, Bob Kilgour found that cows groom themselves with their tongues and
hooves, but also with trees, branches and fence posts, according to ABC Science Online. Kilgour says that these inanimate
objects are being used by the cows as tools. One example included cows using fallen tree branches to "groom around
their eyes." This then raises questions of animal rights in feedlot environments. A healthy, well-kept coat may
also be a good defense against parasites, Kilgour says. Where one person may view a steer knocking over a feedlot
fence post as mindless and destructive, Kilgour feels that discouraging such actions "may be thwarting what is a
valuable natural behaviour." A wider acceptance of his theories could mean stronger grounds for complaints by
animal rights activists opposed to the current beef industry. Still, I have to wonder where one draws the line between
grooming and simply scratching an itch.
I think the market for these is people who love odd kitchen tools and people who are, at least
occasionally, too lazy to use two separate measuring cups when cooking. This really unusual set of Odd-Sized
Measuring Cups measure 2/3 cup, ¾ cup and 1½ cups, conveniently eliminating the need to do any math
the next time you are doing any baking. I'm sure that I would use them if I had a set, particularly because these are
very common measurements, but I am not sure that I would buy them for myself. If they were a gift, though....