equipment
Can't tell a spatula from a strainer? Then take a look through our guide to everyday kitchen equipment.
Equipment for baking
Muffin or cupcake pans are available in a variety of shapes and sizes from large to medium and small. Most now come with a non stick coating.
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Cooking accessories
Most modern ovens come with a timer but often a hand held timer is handy to use when timing stovetop cooking.
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Cutting equipment
Knives come in all shapes, sizes and lengths. Some have a special serrated edge to cut through bread because it is so soft. Others are large to cut bigger shapes such as pumpkin or meats. There are small knives especially designed to cut smaller pieces of vegetables into specific shapes.
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Kitchen utensils
Ice-cream scoops are used for just that, scooping ice-cream and sorbets. They can also be used for measuring other things like meatballs to make sure they are all about the same size. If you are feeding a lot of people you can also measure out things like mashed potato and pumpkin.
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Lifting and turning utensils
Tongs come with long and short handles and are used for picking up or turning foods over. If you are deep frying (cooking in a big saucepan of oil like chips) or barbequing, the long handles will keep you further away and protected from being burnt. The short handled ones are used for serving up foods.
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Mixing and beating
Mixing bowls are available in glass, stainless steel, ceramic and plastic. The stainless steel and plastic are very handy as they don’t break if they are dropped. The average kitchen needs to have a least 1 large, 1 medium and 2-3 small mixing bowls. Egg-whites for meringue or pavlovas should preferably be beaten in glass or stainless steel.
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Strainers and colanders
Strainers come in all shapes and sizes from very small ones used for dusting icing sugar on cakes to large ones used for draining liquids from vegetables. Strainers can also be used to sieve flour or to puree vegetables and fruit by rubbing them through the wire part of the strainer.
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