Kit out your kitchen with some of the best gadgets on the market – some are effortlessly cool and will give your worktops the look of an experienced chef, others are just so useful and obvious that you’ll wonder why it took so long to think them up.
Smokey the Silencer
We’ve all done it. We blame the grill, the oven or the spitting bacon, but you know full well that when the toast burns, it won’t go off in time for us to rescue it. What you need, of course, is a smoke detector that doesn’t compound the problem by making you rush out into whichever room the detector is in and wave a tea towel underneath it for thirty seconds as the screech deafens you.
The answer is in a remote control smoke detector; a magnetic device you link to your smoke alarm. The next time the screeching noise starts up at the mere sniff of a slightly browned beef burger, just press a button and the smoke detector is silenced.
Kitchen Aid Artisan Food Mixer
It’s the ultimate in cool retro kitchen chic, and the reason it’s been gracing kitchens for over 75 years is that it’s so darn useful as well as being rather beautiful too. This is one of the best-selling food mixers in the world, it’s available in a range of 15 colours to brighten up any dull worktop, and it’s suitable for any grade of cook. A Kitchen Aid will last for years, make great cakes and look fantastic while it does it.
http://www.kitchenaid.co.uk/
Cake Pop Maker
Forget about cupcakes, cake pops are the way to go. Have your cake and eat it on a stick with a cake pop maker, and you can either use ready-made cake (though where’s the fun in that?) or bake your own from scratch. It only takes four minutes to create a little ball of cake that’s ready to be decorated – or just popped in your mouth when nobody’s looking. You can also use them to make cute little mini doughnuts, rolled in sugar and injected with jam…
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/15917/Sweet-Treats-Cake-Pop-Maker
Alessi BLIP Stainless Steel Spoon Rest
Putting a spoon down on the kitchen work tops just makes a mess, and can be unhygienic too, so the clever designers at Alessi have come up with a really funky designer spoon rest that doubles up as a worktop decoration when you’re not using it. The spoon rest holds any size spoon from a teaspoon to a ladle and its compact design will earn it a place in just about any size kitchen. No more sticky work tops!
The iKettle
It’s so much easier to wrench yourself out of bed if you know there’s a hot cup of coffee waiting for you. And wouldn’t it be great to get the kettle on while you’re watching Downton Abbey, so that as soon as it goes to the ad break you have boiling water for that nice cup of tea?
Welcome the iKettle, brand new for November 2013, which gives anyone who is also in possession of an iPhone the ability to control hot beverage making from anywhere in the house. Once the kettle is connected to Wi-Fi, you can use the app to boil water and the kind-hearted alarm will gently wake you – then keep the water warm for you if you’re not ready to get up just yet.
http://www.firebox.com/product/6068/iKettle
These cool gadget tips are brought to you by James Sheehan. He writes for a number of food and catering blogs such as Passionate About Food and Carlton Services.