Small Appliances

For grilling without an actual grill, most chefs resort to stovetop griddles of heavy cast iron. The Scanpan Classic 11-inch Square Griddle gives nonstick results without the weight of cast iron. Hand-cast aluminum poured under 200 tons of pressure distributes heat evenly over the entire surface of the griddle. ...

Ahh, I remember our little dorm fridge. Every time we opened the door, which didn't hold much, whatever was stored there would spill out onto the floor of our room. We could barely fit some plastic reusable ice cubes in the tiny freezer. We had a dorm cafeteria, so the bother wasn't much ...

Frequently referred to as one of the best coffee makers on the market by people who have enjoyed owning one, this tall drink of water (err, coffee? hot water??) comes from the Zojirushi company, makers of exceptional hot water pots and rice cookers. That fact alone is enough to ...

I like this device because it feels like having an extension of my body with the ability to blend. The movement is far more natural than the awkward way I have to hold a regular mixer. I can maneuver it with simple rotations of my wrist, with no strain, ...

This perfect marriage of rice cooker and steamer means fantastic results for your waistline and any healthy eating plan This is the Asian equivalent of a Crock Pot, or one pot meal. Meat, seafood, eggs, veggies, or tofu can go inside along with your rice. The rice cooks without monitoring and ...

I am a lover of sweet treats, but standing over the bowl with the mixer, I can never quite find a comfortable position. Sometimes everything goes well. Other times, I wish I had an extra set of hands. That is where the versatility of a hand/stand mixer is ...

Chemistry class was always a favorite of min -- the tubes, beakers and flasks, the interesting experiments. I guess that's why I'm drawn to this unusual coffee making system by Bodum. Each time a pot is made, it's like a little laboratory in my kitchen. It is as much fun ...

If you use or store more than a few bottles of wine per week or you are beginning to be able to detect the subtle differences that emerge with greater knowledge, you need a special place to store your selections.

When you have a dedicated wine chiller, it is possible ...

The Gaggia Titanium Super Automatic Espresso Machine features a double boiler system to separate water supplies for brewing and steaming and fully programmable settings. Perfect espresso is the consistent result, with options for several brew times and varieties of product.

This beautiful machine is not difficult to comprehend. Internal sensors warn ...

Whenever a product is advertised "As Seen on TV," I tend to be dubious of the claims. The Nuwave Infrared Oven may not revolutionize your life, but it does a good job of cooking a variety of foods without heating up the kitchen, once you learn its ways.

The main energy sources ...

Sharp has really raised the bar with this full-featured oven. If you are searching for a true all-in-one solution to countertop cooking, then this may be just the thing to meet your needs.

The Sharp R-820JS looks to be a sophisticated microwave oven at first glance. The controls are extensive, and ...

The Krups XP1500 Coffee and Espresso Machine is a moderately priced combination coffeemaker that wants to please everyone but unfortunately ends up falling short in its coffeemaking abilities and convenience.

With the aim to produce an appliance that satisfies the coffee as well as the espresso drinker, Krups has come out with this ...

This sturdy and compact espresso maker from Cuisinart has all the features that make for a great coffee making appliance for your kitchen. The question is, does it provide enough features and convenience to compete with others in the price range?

The EM-100 Espresso maker is a pump-driven machine capable of coffee brewing ...

This programmable eight-cup Renaissance Drip Coffeemaker from Saeco uses a thermal stainless steel and carbon fiber carafe to keep coffee hot rather than a warming plate. Although that is energy efficient, and the unit shuts off after brewing, it can affect both temperature and flavor of your morning brew.

When ...

Until someone comes up with a radical new technology for toasting bread, we will be choosing our favorite device from small slotted boxes with spring plungers, little changed in a lifetime. All the while cursing the heavens for burnt or underdone toast. Into the fray comes this ...

Panasonic's 1250 Watt NN-H765WF Microwave Oven offers push button control and an automatic 15-inch diameter turntable for even cooking. Ten power settings actually power down rather than giving infrequent bursts of high power as many microwaves do. At lower power settings, the cooking is more controlled with temperatures remaining constant.

Three ...

Built for slicing, shredding, mixing dough, and blending, the all purpose ten-cup Black and Decker FP 1550S Food Processor can perform well but requires some special care. The ten-cup capacity is misleading, with amounts well below this level being a safe amount for this lightly built machine.

Although the 500-watt ...

Excelling at some common food processing jobs like kneading bread dough and slicing fruits and vegetables, the Cuisinart DLC-5BK Food Processor falls short in other areas. The rated capacity of seven cups is not an accurate working volume -- three cups of liquid is the maximum working load.

Although the useful ...

The ESAM3300 is known as a Super-Automatic for good reason. This style of machine is designed for absolute push-button convenience when preparing Italian coffee drinks.

Manufactured in Italy, this model features a burr grinder and will hold up to 7 oz. of coffee beans ready for automatic grinding right before the brewing ...

This convection toaster oven from Krups offers sophisticated electronic controls along with innovative quartz heating. All meant to elevate the experience beyond what you would expect from a countertop appliance.

The oven has an interior capacity of .59 cubic feet, which is roomier than most toaster ovens in this category according ...

If you are looking for an efficient, quick way to heat water for coffee or tea without the potential hazards of boiling water on the stove, then an electric kettle is for you.

The Chef's Choice electric kettle has a 1.7 liter capacity, almost 2 quarts. There are smaller kettles on ...

Coffee is a religion. And for those of us who worship daily at the altar, the promise of better coffee and easier preparation will always get our attention. This espresso maker from Nespresso in Italy sounds like true coffee nirvana, albeit an expensive one. I mean, the machine is ...

KitchenAid's Ultra Power 5 Speed Hand Mixer doesn't have the power the name implies and will require a light touch. More advanced versions of the Ultra Power mixers offer a wider range of speeds and options for higher torque. With this five speed hand mixer, you'll have to compensate by ...

For the many small jobs a pop-up toaster can't handle -- like open-faced sandwiches with cheese -- a full-sized oven does not make good economic sense, wasting watts on a snack-sized item that could as easily be spent on a turkey. The Sanyo Space Saving Toaster Oven fits neatly in that ...

The Rival 22 Quart Roaster Oven does more than roast full size turkeys -- this particular model can be used as a spare oven, capable of baking, roasting, or even slow cooking soups and stews. Maximum turkey size for this device is over 18 pounds, with room left ...

Cuisinart's DCC-1100 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemake offers 24 hour programmability plus settings for 1 to 4 cups of brew. Programming and use is not self explanatory, however, and you'll find the manual essential until you're accustomed to the system.

The DCC-1100 does have water filtration and a warning light which flashes ...

Few brewing methods are easier than the percolating design of the Presto 12 Cup Coffee Pot. If it's been a few years since you've used one, you may need to relearn the old tricks that go along with it.

The Presto, like any percolator design, takes a little longer but does a ...

The Oster 6297 Convection Toaster Oven offers a wide temperature range, thoughtful design, and timed cooking up to 60 minutes. Pick an oven recipe that fits its range and you'll get good results; for a countertop oven, it's very capable.

One of the nice perks of the Oster Toaster is the ...

Usable with any four burner or four element stovetop, this enameled cast iron Reversible Grill from Staub gives the home chef a generous working space and a choice of smooth or ribbed surfaces. The cast iron distributes heat evenly, but will be a chore to clean. That gets better ...

Simple and durable, the Original GRXB BUNN Coffeemaker makes coffee in three minutes and gets ready for more. Lack of computer control contributes to reliability, but there's no 24 hour automatic brewing option.

With the BUNN Original, you add water to the stainless steel reservoir tank, add finely ground coffee ...

If you doubt at all the speed and ability of a food processor, try a little race at home. Time yourself slicing, chopping, or shredding with your best knife, and then run the same item through the Cuisinart. Not only is it faster, you will notice that the pieces come ...

The season is coming...The garden will soon overwhelm us with its bounty. If not the garden, then the farmer's market or the bargain veggies at the grocer's. The economy may be on its way back up, but we've all learned a lesson about saving where you can because you never know what's around ...

If you could design your own perfect kitchen, what would you include? Before you say stove, you need to know that the possibilities for cooking have moved far beyond what you may be used to. Would you like your own built-in barbecue for year-round grilling, perhaps?

This modular grill is one of several ...

If you have a KitchenAid stand mixer, one or two of these spare bowls are the best accessory you can buy. How often are we ever mixing a recipe that requires only one bowl? For a cake with icing, separate premix of wet and dry ingredients, double batches, breads or ...

Why consider a dispensing pot? Walk through your day and think about all of the times in your day hot water is called for. Hot cereal, coffee or tea at breakfast. Boiled eggs or soup at lunch. Hot drinks throughout the day. Instant noodle snacks. Water for boiling pasta, blanching vegetables. ...

I am definitely into health food without the health food price. If you've walked through that specialty section in your local grocery recently, you know exactly what I mean. You'd think not adding preservatives and sugar was costly from a manufacturing standpoint.

That's why having an option like the Vita-Mix tips the scales ...

Mom used to make very tender meat dishes in her electric skillet; a favorite, since she could boil the potatoes and carrots, brown the meat, and then simmer the whole meal in gravy -- all in one pan, all in one appliance. Having an electric skillet is like having the ...

Though they call this the Beehive bar blender, this isn't just for making mixed drinks. Anyone who enjoys crushed ice drinks, or crushed ice alone, will be overwhelmed with the production of this unit. It crushes like nobody's business, using super sharp blades and an all-metal drive powered by a one-half ...

A French press pot with a precise filtering mechanism and a great look, this polished stainless steel coffee maker by Bodum makes eight two-ounce espresso style cups of delicious hot brew. That's about four cups American style.

This much stainless steel, with a double walled thermos design, can take ...

With the capacity to make four two-ounce cups of rich espresso coffee, the Bialetti Brikka stovetop percolator is the tried and true coffee system of many European homes. Although it takes some tending, it yields an excellent brew.

Cooking with steam rather than a hot water drip means you have to be ...

The Oster Toaster oven is available in a fire-engine red color and features a convection cooking system and uncomplicated controls meant to provide versatility and space-saving convenience on the kitchen counter.

This model has a decidedly retro appearance with rotary dials, and an industrial-style metal casing with venting slots on the sides. ...

There are no doubt as many methods of brewing coffee as there are coffee drink flavors. They all follow the same basic rules, however:

1. Grind roast coffee beans.
2. Boil water and add to ground beans.
3. Filter and drink resulting brew.

Since the basic process is such a simple one, folks are always ...

With a powerful 600-watt motor and interchangeable processing disc blades, the Cuisinart Prep 11 is backed up by company claims that parts are virtually unbreakable and even tough jobs like mixing and kneading bread dough are within its range. The eleven-cup capacity of the blender pitcher implies the ...

The four-cup capacity Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus is a handy alternative to a full-sized blender, with enough power for small jobs and easy-to-clean features that will give it more use. The Mini-Prep will grind as well as chop dry ingredients, and has push button controls plus automatic reversal for ...

This highly functional smaller unit is perfect for anyone who needs to make smaller batches of rice or to make fresh rice on a frequent
basis. The nicest feature is the included steaming basket. It allows items to cook more gently and expands on the possibilities for the pot. Everything except the ...

I have limited storage space in my kitchen affecting both my counters and cabinets. I need to combine wherever possible, or I'll soon be crowded out of the room. That's why I really like this combination. With all of the available choices in appliances in general, and coffeemakers in particular, ...

I'm a clumsy person. Put a pot of hot oil in front of me and add an open flame to the mix, and there will be an incident. It makes for a
great story for another day, an exciting moment or two, but what a mess.

Fondue can be fun, intimate and playful. ...

If you've always wondered what the deep fried turkey experience would be like but were too afraid of the open flame, the vat of oil in the frosty driveway, having to run between your kitchen and the outdoors to get the meal prepared, Masterbuilt has the solution. Their fryer sits right ...

My first toaster oven was a hot mess. There was no good way to clean it, so the stains accumulated until it became unsightly. Black & Decker has attempted to ensure that I will never again have to be ashamed to leave my oven out on the counter, thanks to the ...

My family has an overwhelming need for hot water. Using the stove, the kettle gets filled, the burner heated ten times or more a day. With a whistling kettle, the charming sound can wear out its welcome quickly if you're busy and can't get right in to take it from the heat.

This is a brilliant ...