You don't need one of these. My family has had one all my life. It takes forever to whip cream or egg whites. Then I went to my Aunt's house, and saw my Uncle use an egg beater and it was SO much faster. Get an egg beater. I'm sure they are less expensive too. Well, I would like to refraise that. My Aunt has an old one that works great, but we have one that doesn't work at all for whipping cream. It depends on the egg beater.
Your not a chef on America's Test Kitchen! You don't need these. They might seem handy, but it just makes more work. First, you have to pre-measure all your ingredients, and then you have to wash so many more dishes after. Not to mention, if your going toput each ingredient in it's own bowl, you will have to spend a lot of money buying them, because you can't cook that many things with four ingredients.
Sure, if you have a cooking show, it will save time on the air, but otherwise, your wasting your money. They're probably handy, but I just use a grill brush and I do fine.
For a silicone spatula, you need very flexible rubber. Nothing hard, no no. we have lots of spatulas with hard rubber, and they stay in drawer.
For a all around spatula (the kind for flipping things in a pan) you need sturdy metal. It depends, sometimes I need a thin one, sometimes it doesn't matter. For a non-stick spatula, you need it to be metal, coted in plastic, or silicone, or whatever they use. I had an all plastic one, and it broke, it's almost completely flat now. Dry food measuring cups should be made of metal, plastic is OK, but it bends easily. They should have one cup, three fourths cup, one half cup, two thirds cup, one third of a cup and one fourth of a cup. It is handy to have more, but by no means is it necessary.
Wet food measuring cups should be glass, so you can boil your exact amount of water in the microwave. It is good for it to go up to two cups, but one cup works. Measuring spoons should be metal and on a ring. You should have one tablespoon, one teaspoon, one half teaspoon, and one fourth of a teaspoon. A half tablespoon and an eighth teaspoon are nice, but not necessary. By no should you need have measuring spoons for a dash and a pinch. You just dash the salt shaker and pinch a bit of sugar between your fingers. These measurements are not meant to be exact. And what is a smidgen? I don't believe that very many people know what that is, let alone measure with it. Now that I'm saying that, it occurs to me that it is probably a measurement used commonly in England. But I am American, so I don't know. I apologize if I have offended anyone. Wisks should have four to six wires. No more. I have wiskes with more wires and everything gets stuck in them.
Don't get the ones where the handles spin sepratly. That doesn't do anything but make it harder. Get one with no handles or one with handles that don't spin.
My brother broke a rolling pin once. He was trying to roll out sugar cookie doe that had been in the fridge and got hard. Then we got one with spinney handles (we had one with handles that stay in place before) and it doesn't work too good. I usually use it like one without handles by not even touching the handles when I use it. |