Announcing the first one-off food blogging event on Not Eating Out in New York: That Crazy Kitchen Gadget. Rules are simple:
1. Identify your crazy, obscure, mysterious, ineffective, obsolete or completely awesome kitchen gadget and remember to photograph it or at least describe it well in your post.
2. Cook a dish using the same crazy kitchen gadget. Provide recipe and photographs in your post. Remember to mention the name of this contest and blog in your post, and link to it.
3. Post your crazy kitchen gadget recipe before August 1, 2007, and email me also before then with your name, blog name, post name, gadget name, mother’s maiden name (just kidding), URL to the post, and low-res image of the dish or gadget (320 x 240 is good). I’ll post a round-up in early August and we’ll have a blast.
Why am I doing this contest? Because crazy kitchen gadgets are wonderful artifacts of our culinary and/or domestic culture. And they can also be hilarious.
Here’s an example: First of all, thanks so much to everyone who has put in their vast range of two cents toward my quest to find out what to bake in my Chinese cookie mold. Your word-of-mouth and eyewitness details about the mold and the type of dessert it’s supposed to make have given me a much richer knowledge of it than I could ever glean from the internet alone. Still, however, I am having a really difficult time with this thing.
I’ve buttered and floured the carved wooden crevices of the mold, and I’ve attempted to freeze the dough into the mold to see if it comes out easier, but no matter what, I cannot get the cookie dough to come out of the mold cleanly. Not even close to cleanly. The whole thing becomes a complete mess, with the sticky dough trapped into the nooks and crannies of the mold. I also tried, at my mom’s suggestion, putting a layer of plastic wrap in between the mold and the dough — but then the design doesn’t show on the cookie.
The type of cookie dough I made was one like Yvo and Jen describe in their comments. It has homemade almond paste, a little butter, sugar and flour. But according to Jack Ma now, the mold should be used to make a Hong Kong-style rice cake… would that have a similar texture to, say, angel food cake? Anyone have any ideas?
So that’s my working project for That Crazy Kitchen Gadget. Hopefully by August 1, I’ll have made something fabulous with it. Or perhaps, at the very least, I’ll be able to commiserate with the rest of you whose kitchen gadget projects don’t go quite as planned. Now off to work!
28 Responses
Su-Lin
Hi Cathy – I cannot say that I’ve ever tried using these moulds but I had a discussion a few months back with my father about some old kueh bangkit molds in his possession. These are dry, almost shortbread-like, biscuits that are also formed in wooden moulds, similar to the one you have but much smaller. He remembered his mother dusting the mould with flour only, packing in the dough, and then tapping (banging?) the mould hard on a surface, whereby the biscuits would pop out. Just thought this might be another route to try…
Yvo
Maybe the cookies suck (the ones we’ve eaten, not the ones you’re making) because they bake the hell out of them so there’s no moisture left by which they could cling, they shrink so much? Good luck… Oy.
Kitt
Oh, fun contest. Can’t wait to see the results!
Trying to think of what weird gadget I can blog …
Deborah Dowd
I am scanning my kitchen to find something worthy…
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Third Shift
Neat! I don’t have any wacky “gadget”, I have tools, but now I have an inspiration to start a imbb event: the kitchen tool which you most aspire to use but don’t. 🙂 I’ll think of something to submit.
Anna
when i first saw your event on “is my blog burning” i immediately thought about my maamoul mold (a middle eastern cake mould) but now that i read your post i’m going to have to be a little more inventive!
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margo
I wish to purchase an electric aebleskiver pan as seen on http://www.acatinthekitchen.com. It was described as being not that crazy, but it,s unusual. Where can I purchase one? I have searched the web and only found the cast or alum ones; I am looking for the electric one seen in said receipe picture.
Bit.Twiddler
I have a crazy gadget that I found when cleaning out my Mom’s kitchen, and I can’t figure it out. I have one guess from a culinary store manager, but want to see what you Crazy Kitchen Gadsters come up with. How do I add a picture?
Here’s a description:
It is shaped a little like tongs, one piece of bent stainless, about 6″ long. One end has a blade about 1″x1.5″ attached. When squeezed, the blade passes through a slot on the other end.
There is a tang on the end of the blade to catch it on upstroke when released. The blade is not sharp like a knife, maybe more like a cheese spreader.
Also interesting, is that the edge of the blade does not strike the surface along its full length. The cutting angle allows only the tip to strike/cut all the way through the object. The length of the handle even prevents tilting the blade to get fuller contact, except along the edge of a table or work surface.
Maybe it is designed to be held higher in the air,
like at cake-top level or for pie cutting? There is a name on it, probably the manufacturer, looks like Foley, Minneapolis.
I’m anxious to hear what you think.
–BT
Karolina Pruchniewska
Good morning. Since I have been collecting commercial gifts for a long time I thought it would be great to have yours as well. Would you be so kind and send them to me? thank you.
Main adresse:
Karolina Pruchniewska
Ul.Wojska Polskiego 9/9
48-200 Prudnik
POLAND
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Fuck you
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Almond Paste with Black Sesame Ball – I love that the almond paste is not too sweet.
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