Unused Baking Equipment: Any Regrets?

[NThomas]

Is there any piece of baking equipment that you regret purchasing? Do you have some gadget or gizmo in you kitchen cabinet that has not been used since the day you brought it home? Are there and unused appliance that you thought were great when you found them in the strore , but you now wonder what you were thinking when you bought them?

 

[LivetoErr]

My Hamilton Beach stand mixer; that thing is useless. That's about the only thing used for baking unless the actual oven counts. I hate that oven. It doesn't have a broiler and most cookie sheets don't fit inside it. I don't know why more cabinet space was better than a bigger (normal sized) oven but, it makes me mad.

As far as appliances go, my ice cream maker and juicer sit are collecting dust. I preferred the sorbet I made by hand over the ice cream I made. Will might have to give it a go though. Perhaps, I can perfect a recipe as it's hard to bring ice cream home. We live 15 minutes from the nearest store in a warm climate. We never remember to bring the freezer bag with us so, we pass on buying ice cream.

 

[OhioTom76]

Cuisinart Rotisserie Oven - Big and bulky and a pain in the butt to keep clean. Takes just as long if not longer to make a chicken in it, than it does just putting it in the oven - and it more or less just produces the same results. Even though the unit is huge, there is not much space inside for anything more than a small or perhaps medium size chicken - and it's practically touching the sides. Even after just one use the grease is practically permanently baked onto the interior walls. The grease tray is also too shallow and frequently overflows while cooking.

Presto Pizza Maker - Again, there is no benefit to having your pizza spin around like this, and only get partially heated. It still takes a long time to cook the pizza and doesn't cook it evenly. The top is usually burnt before the sides and bottom are done. In addition, the center of the pizza doesn't get cooked evenly, and is usually cold.

Jack LaLane Juicer - Sturdy, but poorly designed. The spout is so low you can't fit most glasses under it so you instead have to juice into a shallow bowl then try and pour from that into a glass. Overall the unit is way too big for what it does, and there are far too many parts to clean just to make a glass of juice. The blade panel is extremely sharp and it's difficult to get all the food bits out of it when cleaning it. The unit itself stains easily, especially the white model, so carrots and beets will leave marks in the plastic that will not come out - I suspect there is BPA in this as well. You can practically fill 1/2 to 2/3 of your dish washer trying to wash all the parts to this device. There is a separate detachable handle needed to remove and replace the blade ring, which can easily get lost.

 

[Tara]

Jack LaLane Juicer - Sturdy, but poorly designed. The spout is so low you can't fit most glasses under it so you instead have to juice into a shallow bowl then try and pour from that into a glass. Overall the unit is way too big for what it does, and there are far too many parts to clean just to make a glass of juice. The blade panel is extremely sharp and it's difficult to get all the food bits out of it when cleaning it. The unit itself stains easily, especially the white model, so carrots and beets will leave marks in the plastic that will not come out - I suspect there is BPA in this as well. You can practically fill 1/2 to 2/3 of your dish washer trying to wash all the parts to this device. There is a separate detachable handle needed to remove and replace the blade ring, which can easily get lost.

Thanks for this review because I'm in the market for a juicer. I was really thinking about purchasing this one basically because I thought Jack LaLane was awesome.

My regret is a recent purchase, I used to use a microwave a long time ago. It broke down. I just got used to not using one.

My new roommate thought it would be a good idea to get one. They don't cost much. I haven't used in the month since we bought it. My roommate doesn't really use it either. I think she has used it twice to heat up water.

 

[Sabiya]

While not exactly used for baking, I have a jerky machine. Scratch that, my husband has a jerky machine. It's supposed to be used for anything from making home-made beef jerky to making fruit chips to making jams. We barely use it and it's a shame. My husband was at that phase that he'd buy supermarket jerky almost every time we went grocery shopping, and then when we bought the machine as a gift for him, he doesn't use it. Suddenly he lost interest in eating jerkies and making jerkies!

I don't use it for recipes like jam because I don't like to use jam in my baking recipes. As for making dried fruit, I have yet to find a use for it in my recipes, perhaps for a bread pudding recipe with custard? I don't even make bread pudding to be honest so that's just stretching the use of this machine too far. I want to throw it out, but more than likely my husband will fight me tooth and nail to keep it. Boys and their toys, I swear.

 

[ACSAPA]

My daughter begged me to buy a cotton candy machine and I've only used it twice. It's kind of fun while I'm actually using it, but a pain to clean up afterwards and takes up a foot of cabinet space. I'm holding on to it for when she has friends over for movie night, so that I can make cotton candy for a small group.

 

[Dough Girl]

My son bought me a Chinese bamboo steamer and I'm embarrassed to say I've never even taking the wrapping off of it! Its not that its intimidating, its just that it doesn't "inspire" me in any way to create something delicious. I look at it and immediately think "rice" and that's about it. I would welcome suggestions from anyone who has experience with them.

 

[DancingLady]

I don't have much equipment myself, but my mom has an ice cream maker that hardly gets used. No one likes the ice cream it makes, no matter what recipe,for some reason it never tastes very good.

She also has a food processor I've never seen used my whole life.

 

[connie]

When we moved into our current place there wasn't an oven and we knew we needed one, so we purchased a combination convection oven plus microwave.
Well it was horrendous. The temperature control was useless. It must have been 30-40C lower than it stated and it would only go up to 200C as it was which when taking the lack of temperature into account made the maximum it could do around 160C. You absolutely had to use the metal stand that came with it when using the oven side of life because otherwise nothing cooked on the underside. It supposedly had a browning option - I say supposedly because it never made anything go brown! Oh and that metal stand was also a pain in the backside because you then had to balance whatever it was you wanted in the oven on it and that meant everything ended up on a slant, so if you had a cake, one side would be deeper than the other and usually undercooked. And the thing was a beast, it was huge. It took up so much space that it was ridiculous.

We have since replaced it with a normal microwave that only microwaves.

 

[Trellum]

The electric hand mixer we got some years ago. I have only used a few times, none in the last 3 years. That thing is nothing like my beloved moulinex.

 

[Winterybella]

Believe it or not a simple thing like a whisk, I hardly ever use. I'd just as easily use a fork as it's right there. One day I will go through my cupboard and pull out a host of things that are just 'collectibles".

 

[Tina Nord]

I have a pancake press that I got a few years ago and have never touched. It makes perfect round uniform pancakes and now I think it is a pointless object that takes up space in my cabinet. I thought it would be cool to have it at the time, but I still just make pancakes the old fashioned way.

 

[Trellum]

I have a pancake press that I got a few years ago and have never touched. It makes perfect round uniform pancakes and now I think it is a pointless object that takes up space in my cabinet. I thought it would be cool to have it at the time, but I still just make pancakes the old fashioned way.

It's way more practical and fast to do it the old-fashioned way, right? Plus it takes more time and effort to clean those once you are done than the time it'd take making them the old-fashioned way I feel the same way towards those huge juicers...

 

[ReadmeByAmy]

I had a waffle maker that I got as a birthday gift from my sister. Even once I had not used it for any purpose although it is easy to use and to make varieties of waffles still it is just kept in one corner of our kitchen. Well I hope that I will be able to use it in due time.

 

[Diane Lane]

The one that I use the least is my breadmaker. It's not that I wouldn't love to use it more, but I live alone right now, and so don't need to be making a bunch of bread. Also, it's an older model, and it's huge. I have a tiny kitchen, and that would use up half of my counter space, so it's sealed in plastic, in the back room closet for now. I'm hoping to pull it out soon and use it, though, because I've got a hankering for homemade bread.