Food Preparation Archives - Page 10 of 10

Best Saucepan for Making Fudge and Candy

Candymaking is fun and rewarding. Hands down, the most popular, traditional home-made confection is fudge.

A few simple tools and a little patience will yield wonderful results, but before you start you’ve got to have the right equipment, and that means a great pot needs to be your first priority.

What Makes a Great Fudge Pot?

A fudge pan needs to be large enough to hold all of your ingredients, even when they expand and bubble during cooking.

The minimum volume I’d recommend for candy making is 3.5 quarts, but in many cases you might wish to use a bigger pan as some recipes call for a fairly large volume of ingredients and you wouldn’t want to risk the serious burns and mess that can be a problem if you boil over a hot sugar mixture.

In addition to size, you also need a pot with a heavy bottom that will distribute heat evenly and protect your confections from scorching.

Tall sides are a plus, as is a pour spout and a nicely fitted lid. Sturdy handles will allow you to move the pot off of a hot burner safely and help immensely when transferring hot candy from the cooking pan to a mold or sheet pan for cooling.

Let’s take a look at a few pots that work well as fudge pots, and I’ll explain why I like each one, as well as tell you which one is my hands down favorite.

Best Home Milk Steamer

closeup milk frother and half cup of milk

Do you love a good cappuccino or latte? Wouldn’t it be great if you could get the same great quality at home, without needing to pay out a good few hundred dollars for an espresso maker or kidnapping a barista?

You can get similar results at home without paying a fortune or committing a felony by investing in a milk steamer. In this post, we are going to have a look at your top options in this area so that you can make coffee like a pro in no time.

Shouldn’t I Look for a Frother?

Milk frothers have become pretty popular over the last few years. They offer a convenient way for you to create a creamy topping for your coffee.

The problem with frothers is that all they do is to whisk the milk up very fast. If you want your coffee to be hot when you drink it, you’ll need to heat the milk up first and then froth it. It’s a pain.

That’s why it is a lot better to simply start off by using a steamer from the outset. A steamer will both heat the milk and get it all frothy. You get your coffee and milk piping hot and nice and creamy.

Are you ready to look at the best options?

Best Teapot for Gas Stoves

There’s nothing quite like a hot cup of tea for breakfast time or anytime. Leaf lovers have their own unique taste and techniques for brewing a personal best cup, but it all starts with the right vessel.

If you have a gas stove, it’s important to consider the materials and your habits before purchasing a new kettle. Before we reveal our top 5 teapots, it’s important to first discuss metal and glass.

15 Degree Angle Knife Sharpener

Sharpening knife process on wooden background

Other than, perhaps, the ingredients themselves, chefs know that the most important thing you can have in a kitchen is a good cooking knife.

No matter how good it is, the knife will not work very well without being regularly and professionally sharpened. Or as they say: A knife is nothing without its edge.

For that reason, having a good knife sharpener is very important. Luckily, modern technology has provided us with the wonder of electric knife sharpeners. Precise and efficient, these fantastic machines are capable of producing the sharpest edges quickly and without making mistakes.

Now, it should be noted that there are many types of knife sharpeners out there. One of the most important differences between electric knife sharpeners is the angle in which they sharpen. The reason for having this differences is that not all knives are meant to be sharpened at the same angle.

While Western knives are typically sharpened at a 20-degree angle, Japanese knives are meant to be sharpened at a steeper 15-degree angle. By having a tighter angle, these knives are capable of cutting with more precision and less effort.

There are various models of electric knife sharpeners capable of sharpening at a 15-degree-angle. However, not all of them have the same capabilities.

In order to help you understand what’s most desirable in this kind of tool, this review will go over the characteristics of the best 15-degree electric knife sharpener on the market: the Chef’sChoice 15 XV Trizor.

Best Dementia Friendly Microwave

When a loved one has dementia, it can become dangerous to have some kitchen appliances around as they can become potential fire hazards.

A microwave that is simple to use helps a person maintain some independence in preparing meals without causing so much worry to you that they may hurt themselves.

Best non-belgian Waffle Maker

Waffles are probably one of the best breakfast foods invented. You can eat them in so many different ways–plain, with syrup or honey, covered in a fruit topping, with nuts–the list goes on. With waffles, you don’t even have to stop at breakfast.

You are very lucky indeed if you get waffles for lunch or dinner. If you are a waffle lover like I clearly am, then chances are you want a really good waffle maker so you can make your favorite brunch meal at home.