I need advice on cooking ‘gadgets’

[Kapalika]

I really need advice on this and would very much appreciate your advice and help.

I’m a competent cook - so baked salmon, chilli, bolognese, I marinate meat, I can safely oven bake. I do a variety of side dishes. I can competently make soups from scratch.

However always struggled with baking, although I can do banana loaf!
So this lady popped up on my Instagram feed and she had a Miele mixer that looked liked the Kitchen Aid. KAids are £500 and I just don’t want to spend that.

I have oven, micro etc. I have loaf tins.
But I don’t have cake baking tins that don’t leak!
Do I need a food processor?
What’s the difference between a KA and a food processor? I use an old fashioned whisk machine like my mum still has.
I’ve bought 3 excellent pans from Procook. I like Lakeland too.

Advice and tips would be amazing!

I’ve a nutri bullet and very small whisker thing that I used to blend the boys food when they were weaning.

I love a kitchen gadget

For baking I have a Kenwood Prospero, I got a really good deal from Sainsburys I think, it’s still going strong 12 years later! It’s smaller than a Chef but it has a processor attachment (which I use regularly) as well as a mixer and dough hook (use all the time, so much easier than kneading) and a blender that hardly gets used at all. A stand mixer is much easier to use than a hand one.

KitchenAids are beautiful but very expensive. If my Prospero died I think I would invest in a Chef, I fancy the pasta attachment!

I should say the processor gets used for hummous mostly but I also do pastry in it.

I am a competent cook along the lines you’ve described, and not bad at baking.

Decent tins - either heavy non stick or silicon made a big difference. Oven thermometer. Delia, Nigella or Mary Berry recipes are pretty reliable (I find than some random internet recipes have clearly not been tested). I managed to get a second hand Kenwood Chef for £20 that makes everything a lot easier.

Room temperature ingredients, preheated oven.
I get my eggs from a local father rather than a supermarket, I don’t know if that makes a difference.

I buy cake tin liners from the pound shop because I hate lining tins by cutting up greaseproof. I have loaf tin shaped ones (my loaf tins were Lurpak freebies from years ago) and I have a 7 inch round loose bottom cake tin, that I can't remember where I bought it, probably Argos, Ikea, Procook or a supermarket. Sainsburys are good for sales on cake tins.

If the recipe is for a different sized tin I just make a slightly deeper or shallower cake (watch cooking times) or do the maths (remember pi x radius squared from school?) and adjust the recipe.

I mostly make brownies because I also CBA with creaming cakes. I did have a medium sized Kenwood stand mixer that I never used but I sold it during the first lockdown when everyone had gone baking mad and they had all sold out, I got more than I’d paid for it despite it sitting in my cupboard for about 8 years.

I found that unless you make a massive cake, there isn’t enough mix for it to work properly. I do have a hand mixer that I use occasionally (I recently made our Christmas cakes) and bought a deep metal bowl from Amazon for about a tenner, because most baking bowls are too shallow and the butter and sugar fly everywhere when you use the mixer.

Baking is a science.

Start with Delia and Mary Berry - their recipes are foolproof if your oven temperature is reliable.

Nigella is a bit of a law unto herself and not always reliable. Adjust cake tin sizes at your peril - I’m not advanced enough to do this and always use the right size tin.

I do have a Kenwood Chef which is amazing, especially whisking. Pavlovas are a great place to start.

I got rid of my aged food processor a few years ago and have not looked back. I have a multi bladed thing that I use to cut butter into flour, a v plain mandoline, hand blender with a small attachment that I use for breadcrumbs and an ancient Kenwood electric whisk. They take up a fraction of the space, live in a cupboard and clean up in a fraction of the time. I make pastry, sourdough bread and pastries, cakes, biscuits, pasta (have a roller) and everyday meals etc.

If you go down this road also make sure you keep a decent grater and set of knives.

Obviously it’s not for everyone, some people have injuries etc that mean extensive wielding if the spoons and spatulas is just not fun, but time wise I don’t think it makes a difference for my fairly small family. The decision to ditch the processor came after asking various informed professionals what to to replace the old one with and all of whom said that anything other than a top of the range Meile was “a waste of counter space”. Didn’t have spare spondoolies so decided to try without. A Pro Baker I love swears by kitchen aid for bulk.

Everything has turned out better……particularly cakes and pastry. So to answer the “Do I need one?” I’d say you can definitely be happy without! .

I found that unless you make a massive cake, there isn’t enough mix for it to work properly.

I found the same. In fact, I very rarely use my stand mixer, and use an electric hand held mixer. For sponge cakes I use the all-in-one method so don't need to mix for ages. Just a quick mix until the mixture is completely blended then I'm done.

The golden rules as set out by Delia Smith, as said by BikeRunSki are:

1. Good quality cake tins
2. Correct sized cake tins
3. The correct oven temperature - buy an oven thermometer to check yours if you aren't sure
4. Ingredients at room temperature
5. The correct sized eggs as specified in a recipe - if it says large eggs, use large eggs
6. Measure your ingredients exactly
7. Bake in the centre of the oven unless specified
8. Don't over mix the mixture after the flour has been added as it will develop the gluten and the cake won't rise so well
9. Don't use too much baking powder or the cake will rise quickly and sink

An old fashioned way to weigh sponge cake ingredients is to weight the eggs in their shells, then use equal weights in SR flour, sugar and butter (I use tub Stork). For a Victoria sandwich cake I would make this with three eggs and use 2 x 7 inch sandwich tins. This method is foolproof.

Cooking is an art, baking a science. 'That's about it' is not a phrase to use in baking.

First step is getting stuff that doesn't leak!

I have loose bottomed cake tins, and some spring form square ones. 20cm tins are most common size used. Decent set of scales if you don't have some.

In terms of gadgets. I have little side space - I don't even have a microwave. So any gadget that wants a place has to earn its keep.

For a stand mixer, as much as Id love one. I'd have to bake at least every fortnight, and use it for other bits and pieces throughout the week to justify the cost and side space.

A food processor I think is a little more versatile, with chopping and pulsing functions. I'd say you'd get one more for your cooking than your baking though.

I do have a electric hand mixer. Its a Breville heat soft one. Can blow warm air to soften butter as it mixes, if you've forgotten to get it out the fridge. Quick at it too, but doesn't melt it to liquid.

My next gadget isn't a gadget as such....but I need to get a good set of cake transport. So fed up of wrapping cakes in tin foil, and want a proper box.

I love my kenwood stand mixer but it does take up a lot of side space. I find that I need to dig up the base of creamed butter and sugar to make sure it all mixes in which is a pain but I leave it to mix properly whilst weighing out other ingredients so it pays off.

Hummingbird recipes are failsafe IMO. I love their cake days book.

The full size ninja blender if you like things like smoothies that need a powerful blender that crushes ice and frozen fruits etc. Of course it would be great for soups and so on too. It's about £100 but a good price for a really powerful blender.

Creaming/mixing by hand much less faff than getting out/assembling/washing a mixer. We haven't got enough kitchen space to have one standing permanently on a counter.

Creaming/mixing by hand much less faff than getting out/assembling/washing a mixer.

Not if you use a hand held mixer. I just have the whisk to wash. I find creaming by hand much more onerous.

I bake fairly regularly and generally successfully and use either my hand mixer (had my last one for over 20 years before it died and I just bought the modern equivalent) or, for eg oil-based cakes, just a wooden spoon. Lining tins and using right sizes (or adjusting recipe to fit wrong size tin) are key and right oven temperature. And if it doesn’t turn out quite right, it’s amazing what you can hide with some buttercream or frosting!

I have a food processor but only use it for chopping large quantities eg to make coleslaw.

I am a very good baker (so hard to write that ). People always ask what my secret is, I would always say that I enjoy baking and I just follow the recipe.

And that's honestly what I thought. But now that I'm baking with my own kids, and now my husband is baking a little with them too, I realise that it's about technique, knowledge and skills that I didn't even know I had.

Knowing when a batter looks 'right'. Knowing when rubbed in butter is at exactly the right stage. Knowing the most successful way to make amazing butter cream. Knowing how to spot and correct a problem. Really, just knowing the stuff the recipe doesn't tell you.

I know now that I got the basics from my mum, and more detail from taking Home Economics at school. The rest is practice. Trying to figure out what went wrong when something turns out a bit crap and doing it different next time.

So, rather than focusing on equipment, I recommend a baking course to get your skillet to the next level. There are lots online too. Or if you have a friend who's a good baker, maybe you could bake together and pick up tips from them.

To answer your question about equipment, I think all you need is a hand mixer, a selection of bowls and measuring jugs and a weighing scales.

I am a person who actually enjoys cooking and baking but am completely self taught.

For baking, I do use my Kitchen Aid mixer several times a week - 1) for making sourdough bagels (impossible to hand knead this dough due to the relatively low amount of hydration), and it really does make a difference for cakes and icings. I have had this mixer for over 10 years with no issues, and can see having it for 10 more. I also have an ice cream making and pasta attachments which are very handy. I think it is money well spent. Also handy is a second bowl.

I also have a food processor with multiple sized bowls. I use the small bowls to whizz up sauces (pesto, salsa verde, romesco, chimmichuri), and the large bowl for slicing potatoes for dauphinoise and gratins, grating carrots and other veg, and chopping large amounts of veg for batch cooking things like bolognese. I use this less than my mixer, but it still is essential for the sauces.

For baking, I would get heavy duty pans and baking tins - they will last, heat evenly for better results, and won't warp over time. A half sheet pan, loaf pan, and 3 high sided 8 inch cake tins will carry though most baking projects. Also helpful is a Silpat sheet, and loaf tin liners (I've had the same packet for 10 years). Essential is a good quality electric scale,

For tips, I find Youtube to be better than books because the visual cues essential to baking are better conveyed through video. Best are BraveTart videos on the Serious Eats web site, Sally's Baking addiction, Joy of Baking, and many others.

Seconday gadgets, but ones I use multiple times a week are:

• a powerful blender. I use mine for making homemade Nutella, soups, smoothies, crepe batter, milkshakes, homemade frappuchinos
• a pressure cooker. I have a Sage Multi cook and use it to make rice, risotto, anything require long cooking times (braised lamb shanks, short ribs, stocks, stews) and it makes the best risottos with no faff. Also makes fantastic rice pudding in only 14 minutes.

Also essential are good knives, a knife sharpener, silicon spatulas and spoons, and an offset spatula.

I am a reasonably competent cook and I also bake plenty of cakes, bread and pastries.

I don't have a stand mixer of any kind be it kitchen aid, meile or kenwood as they take up too much darn room on the work surface. I just use a "magic wand" stick for most things - the blender attachment does soups and cake mixes, there's a balloon whisk attachment for beating eggs. I hardly ever use the food processor attachment. I also have a handheld mixer that has some spiral beaters that are good for dough.

I love looking at kitchen equipment but have to be disciplined about buying things that will take up space without adding significant value to the cooking experience.