Archive for the ‘Gear’ Category
Essential Spatulas for Cooking and Baking
While I agree 100% with vmac in the article Kitchen gadgets you think you need (but don’t), that egg-poachers, garlic peelers, julienne slicers, and choppers aren’t essential equipment, I do differ with his opinion on spatulas. To me, an active home cook (who also bakes) can have more than two spatulas without it being too [...]
Kitchen gadgets you think you need (but don’t): How cooking skills eliminate the need for gadgets
When I was in school, I worked nights at a specialty cookware store, helping people outfit their kitchens and dining rooms. I quickly came to understand that there are a lot of gadgets and gizmos purchased solely as impulse buys (coasters shaped like flip-flops and silicone hot pad holders molded after a dog’s head come [...]
Baking cookies without all the equipment
When I get in the spirit of holiday baking, I usually want to bake more than my kitchen supplies will allow me to. Either I’m imagining equipment that may or may not exist (isn’t there a third cookie sheet?) or I can’t seem to come across my packed-away festive goods (where are the Santa cookie-cutters?).
So, [...]
Chef
My dad taught me to cook hamburgers before I started Kindergarten, and I haven’t looked back since. But it wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I learned how important a good knife is.
My husband bought me a carbon-steel forged German chef’s knife for Christmas one year. I thought it was stylish but [...]
High End Chef’s Knives – Japanese vs. German
Top-of-the-line chef’s knives are almost always manufactured in Germany or Japan. Although the gold standard for knives are forged German knives made by Wusthof or Henckels, Japanese knives made by Global and Shun have been growing in popularity over the last few years.
Whether you should purchase Japanese or German knives is really a matter of [...]
Kitchen Scales: The Tool Every Baking Enthusiast Needs, And Every Pastry Pro Has
*Featured Story*
Why is it that in the United States we home cooks are forced to bake inaccurately, using cups and spoons even when we’ve been baking for years? As any professional (or genuine enthusiast) will tell you (and I’m telling you now), you just can’t bake well without a kitchen scale. For while artistic in [...]
Avoid Baking Mishaps – Have the Right Equipment
My roommate was going through that time of the month and on an impluse decided to bake a yellow cake with chocolate frosting to satisfy her chocolate craving. However, she poured all of the cake batter in a baking pan that was too small for that amount of batter, and upon checking on the cake, [...]