Isn't winter a wonderful cooking and baking season? There is nothing better then coming in from the cold to a steaming pot of soup or warm bread. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!
Carrying on in that same theme, today I would like to share with you my favorite Retro Kitchen Utensils!
My great-grandmother's rolling pin with lovely green handles, passed down from my Mom. When I first started making pies, this is the rolling pin I used. Mom has since "officially" passed it down to me! It is so old that dough hardly ever sticks to it as it is nicely "seasoned". I love the green handles!
Another view of those lovely green handles and my cake spatula. Which I of course bought to match the rolling pin handles! This is an amazing tool! Can be used for spreading frosting, removing cake or muffins from pans, transferring cookies from the table to cookie sheet, transferring cookies from pan to cooling rack, cake cutter and server etc... I only recently acquired the spatula and still discovering all the uses. I does make a HUGE difference in frosting cakes!
Another resent discovery, thanks to my new sister-in-law, is a nut chopper. Works great for making crushed pineapple too! I am all for alternatives to dragging out noisy machines! Just use a little elbow grease! The trick is getting the right size bowl, you want one the chopper will sit flat in, but not too big that the nuts escape. Of course, if you need ground nuts that will take a lot more elbow grease then just chopped! :)
And what would I do without my favorite bowls? This is one of a set of two that were originally part of a Hamilton Beech Stand Mixer. I never saw the mixer, just picked up the bowls at an estate sale.
Got to have a mixer! I must say this is my favorite tool to use! For anything, eggs, cakes batter, crepes, whipped cream, egg whites, pancake batter...you name it, it does a splendid job! I was really amazed when I tried it out the first time, they beat so much better then the electric ones! I think it has something to do with the beaters being closer together then modern egg beaters. The only drawback is the handles, that I again picked out to match my rolling pin, they are a bit small to hold and when trying to get up a good speed are hard to grip.
You can see the cute little handles better.
And an orange juice squeezer! You can find dozens in the antique stores, some at quite shocking prices! Gone are the days when you would have fresh squeezed juice for breakfast, but it does come in handy when a recipe calls for the juice of a lemon! And when you get a bad lot of oranges from the store, they get a new life as juice!
I hope you have enjoyed my collection of utensils from years ago! Do you have kitchen tools from granny?