Product Reviews
Perfect Bake: Smart Baking Companion
My simple notion of homemade baked treats has been shaken to the very core since Perfect Bake™ came into my life. The app-controlled smart baking system guides users through every single step of the baking process to ensure optimal results, from ingredients and prep, to baking and finishing. Perfect Bake is basically like having someone who knows a whole lot about baking hold your hand and walk you through a recipe.
The system includes a scale, three color-coded mixing bowls, an oven thermometer, and a tablet/phone stand. Perfect Bake works through a free app that can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play. Once the app has been downloaded, turn on the scale and connect your tablet or smart phone to it by plugging into the audio jack.
The next step is to choose a recipe, of which there are over 220 available with more added continually through app updates. The recipes have been developed and tested by trained pastry chefs from the Culinary Institute of America, and there are many categories to choose from including Getting Started, Simple, Advanced, Cookies, Vegan, Holiday, and so on.
A neat feature of Perfect Bake is the Pantry function where users can input all the ingredients they already have on-hand at home. Once you have added in all the ingredients, there is an option to display a list of recipes according to how many of the ingredients are currently in the pantry. The app will keep track of what you have, and when you select a recipe later, it will show a check mark next to the ingredients you already have.
Once a recipe has been chosen, select the BAKE! button at the bottom of the screen. The app will register that the scale is connected and prompt you to select OK to calibrate the scale. The recipes are broken down into color-coded blocks that match the included bowls and each block has steps within it. For example, if you’re making cookies, the Prep block might tell you to preheat the oven, and maybe pull out the butter and eggs to bring them to room temperature and get out the first bowl you will need.
There is a boxed question mark symbol next to each step that will reveal details about that aspect of the recipe. So if the step is to Mix/Cream and you are not sure what that means, clicking the question mark will take you to a new screen that describes what it means to cream, lists steps for creaming, and displays a table of KitchenAid Mixer speeds as they translate to Perfect Bake speeds.
Once you advance to the first step of the recipe and put the bowl on the scale, ingredients are weighed by the scale as you pour. A virtual bowl on the screen shows the progress in real time and a ding sounds when it is time to stop. If you overpour an ingredient, the recipe can be adjusted to compensate, but you do have to tell it do so. Otherwise, it will flag that there was an overpour, but not automatically adjust everything for you. When mixing is required, a timer will display and count down to ensure the perfect amount of mixing time.
When the recipe is all weighed, mixed, and ready to pour, a portion meter will weigh each cookie, cupcake, muffin, etc. as you place it on the cookie sheet or pour into a cupcake pan. The portion meter has an arrow that shows you if the weight is in the ideal range. Once the arrow lands in the range, it will auto-zero after detecting a steady weight for three seconds, and you can portion out another. The app will also indicate how far apart you should drop the cookie batter on the sheet. This is especially helpful for getting uniform cupcakes and cookies, or avoiding the dreaded mutant cookies that all run together.
Perfect Bake will then time out your baking and alert you when it is done or time to check on your creation. There is also a timer for the cool down time, if needed. Lastly, the app will direct you to any finishing touches, like dusting powdered sugar over cookies, and will also indicate the proper storage for the baked good.
What I like about Perfect Bake is that the way the recipes are presented makes it so any baking technique seems approachable. The second recipe I made was the Perfect Chocolate Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream Frosting, which called for using a double boiler to combine the egg whites and sugar. Now normally, I would see a step asking me to use a double boiler and immediately choose to skip the recipe entirely. But this time I told myself it was completely doable and went for it – maybe it was because the recipe was under both the Getting Started and Simple categories of recipes. Whatever the case, I am glad I tried it because the frosting came out wonderfully and the cupcakes were amazing.
After that boost of confidence, I was super impressed with myself. “I can do stuff,” I told myself, and made Chocolate Chunk Cookies the next week that were so good my husband demanded that I not even attempt to share them with anyone. I made spur of the moment Red Velvet Mug Cakes for my friends that they are still talking about. The word “cookie” was mentioned in my house and I immediately volunteered to make some. I made Pecan Sandies that almost made me cry they came out so perfectly. I even toasted the pecans myself, another recipe step that would have previously caused me to skip the recipe altogether – but not this time. I toasted the chopped up pecans and those cookies were brilliant, I tell you.
With a suggested retail price of $69.99, Perfect Bake is great for bakers of all experience levels. There are advanced recipes, like Ricotta-Honey Cheesecake and Pâte à Choux, for more advanced bakers, and there are no bake recipes for those with a limited kitchen. If you want to get into baking Perfect Bake is good gateway product since it is essentially a smart cookbook that really doesn’t want you to mess up and even makes sure you measure correctly by doing this for you through the scale. Since using the system I have a new appreciation for homemade baked goods and may even kick my boxed mixes habit. I’ll need to try out a cake recipe first, and the Browned Butter Carrot Cake is certainly calling my name.
This story was originally published in the September 2015 issue of Kitchenware News, a publication of Oser Communications Group.
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The FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe from PRODYNE
By Lorrie Baumann
We get some nice surprises in our mail here at Kitchenware News, and one day a few weeks ago, the package plopped into my chair while I was out at lunch held a nicely boxed FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe from PRODYNE. At first, I wasn’t quite sure that I even wanted to give it a try, as a previous experiment with a similar product had led to a puddle of sangria that flowed across my dining room table until I turned away from my stove and noticed what was happening.
But I’m nothing if not game, so I gave the FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe a try – hedging my bets by filling it with water after I’d tucked a few strawberries and a quartered lime into the strainer container and screwing it onto the bottom of the carafe until it was just finger-tight. After checking to make sure that there were no leaks, I tucked it away into my refrigerator door and left it there for the afternoon. The fact that it’s the right size to tuck away into the refrigerator door is definitely a point in the FRUIT INFUSION’s favor, as my refrigerator has an odd shelving arrangement around a deli drawer that puts storage space for tall items in short supply.
When I got home from work, I poured out a tall glass of water from the FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe, and sure enough, the flavor from the fruit had diffused nicely into the water. Over the course of the next week, I refilled the water in the carafe several times, leaving the same fruit in the bottom container. Then after a week, I decided I was getting a little bored with the flavor, so I removed a couple of the lime quarters and added a wedge of lemon and a sprig of mint from my garden. That was delicious too.
After about another week, I noticed that the strawberries were looking faded from giving their all to my drinking water. The next time I was ready to refill the carafe, I took out the strawberries – and ate them – they were soggy but tasted deliciously of lime-strawberry. I quartered a plum and added it to the fruit container along with a sprig of lavender snatched right out from under the bees that have been buzzing around the flower bed ever since the lavender began to bloom a week or so ago. What started a couple of weeks ago with a resigned acceptance that I’d better give this a try has turned into a fun and rather creative celebration of our beautiful Arizona springtime.
The FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe has opened easily each time I wanted to play with my fruit mixture and then screwed together again smoothly and without a leak. The carafe is made of crystal clear BPA-free SAN polymer, so it’s sturdy enough to be handled by children. Although, if there aren’t any children in the house, the Flavor Carafe can also be used to infuse spirits for one of my favorite warm-weather cocktails, which combines cucumber, basil and vodka – I just have to wait for my basil to grow again. I’m looking forward to that. It can also be used for flavored iced teas.
The FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe from Prodyne has a 1.5 liter capacity, and Prodyne recommends replacing the fruit in the bottom after seven to 10 days. While my sample, the FI-50, is crystal clear, the carafe is also available with a “Touch of Green” green bottom fruit chamber and green lid (FI-50-G). They retail for $19.99.
This story was originally published in the May 2015 issue of Kitchenware News, a publication of Oser Communications Group.
Magisso Teacup Offers Clever Practicality
I’ve been a devout morning coffee drinker for a few years now. However, I have recently been trying out tea in the evenings after dinner as a way to replace a late night sweet snack attack. As luck would have it, a Magisso Teacup arrived in the mail for me in a most timely fashion.
The Magisso Teacup does not look like a traditional teacup. Rather, it is a thoroughly modern interpretation that looks like what you might expect a teacup in the future to look like. The cup is designed to allow users to steep loose leaf tea to their desired strength directly in the cup. It has a triangle bottom that lets you tilt the cup to the filtered side of the cup to steep tea and then tilt it to the other side to stop the steeping.
To use the teacup, first tilt it to the side with the filter so that this side is lower. Next, add in your loose leaf tea to the filter nook, then pour hot water over it until the leaves are completely immersed. When you are ready for the tea to stop steeping, simply tilt the cup to the other side so that the filter is now higher and the tea is out of the water. The leaves remain in the filter nook with no need to remove a wet filter and find a spot for it. When you’re all done, you can tap out the used tea and the filter screen is removable to completely clean the area or help scrape out some wet stuck on tea.
I must say, it is easier to use than I make it sound! The hardest part of using it was initially placing the filter screen inside the cup, but only because I had never done it. Once I figured out how to snap it into place, it was not an issue whatsoever the next time around.
But I will be honest when I say that I went into using the cup with a few concerns. First, there is no handle on the teacup, so I was worried that the cup might be too hot for me to hold without it since the cup is plastic. However, this did not turn out to be the case at all. The cup was warm to the touch but not too hot. Second, I was also worried that the cup would be too big to hold in one hand because it has a wide mouth and appears to be bigger than a traditional teacup. Again, I was wrong and was able to hold it comfortably in one hand. Third, I thought that for sure I would pour hot water everywhere while attempting to get it in the nook where the tea steeps. Once again, this did not turn out to be an issue. The water went right where I wanted it to without so much as a drop out of place.
The Magisso Teacup works like a charm. It is so simple and straightforward that I was over-thinking it.
Using this cup actually prompted my first foray into loose leaf tea. Previously it had seemed too troublesome of a process to load up some tea filter and hope it would seal properly and not let tiny bits of tea leaves into my drink and potentially get stuck in my teeth. So I really can’t imagine drinking loose leaf tea through any other manner now.
I even tried to push the limits of the teacup by putting a regular teabag in the nook area where the loose leaf tea is supposed to go. This worked out somewhat well, but probably best to stick with the intended form of tea. I have yet to try cutting open a teabag and pouring the contents into the filter nook, but I imagine this would work too.
I like using this cup at night because I can place it on my nightstand and not have to worry about getting up again to throw out a teabag or take up extra space on my tiny nightstand by bringing along something to place the used teabag on. Having the ability to steep the tea directly in the cup and stop the steeping with a simple tilt is a clever and practical solution I would have never thought of, but I am glad that the folks over at Magisso did.
The Magisso Teacup is available in seven different colors. For more information, visit www.magisso.com.
Making Cocktails The Smart Way with Perfect Drink
Before I gave the Perfect Drink app controlled bartending system a try, I made sure to stock up my bar. Or so I thought. After one liquor haul that ran around $50, I opened up the app and entered the contents of my liquor cabinet for drink suggestions based on the ingredients I had on hand. I found that I could just nearly make a Rainbow Dee-Lite. All I needed was some blue curacao and the rainbow-colored alcoholic beverage would be mine. It seemed easy enough, but let me tell you right now that blue curacao is hard to find. Four stores, an hour and a half later, and I finally had some blue curacao in my hands. But boy was it worth it.
Let me back up and clarify that when I say “stock my bar,” I mean create a bar by buying a bunch of liquor at random and placing it on my kitchen counter. Let me back up even further and actually explain Perfect Drink. The system is a smart scale that works with an app to provide hundreds of drink recipes, step by step instructions, and weigh out ingredients without measuring. The app can scale drinks so you can select any quantity to make, from one glass to a full pitcher. It will correct over-pours by adjusting the recipe automatically. You can enter the ingredients you have and get suggestions on what drinks to make listed by the level of completeness for your ingredients. If you decide to dream up your own concoction, you can immortalize it in the app to admire in the light of day – and actually remember it the next morning. Since the system is based on the app, it is able to receive continual updates to add new recipes and improve upon user-friendliness based on customer feedback.
So there I was, four stores later and I was ready to make a Rainbow Dee-Lite: orange juice, vodka, pineapple juice, grenadine and blue curacao. I had my iPad placed on the included stand and connected to the scale from the headset jack, ready to lead me on my rainbow drink journey. I changed the quantity from one to two so I could reward my friend who had accompanied me on Blue Curacao Hunt 2015. I poured my first ingredient, the vodka, into the included shaker and immediately poured too much. The virtual glass on the screen that was filling up as I poured turned red, and the app made a disapproving sound and then diligently adjusted the rest of my ingredients accordingly. Next up was the blue curacao. This time, I poured the right amount and the app let out a happy “ding!” I stirred these two together and then set them aside to begin layering the drink in a separate glass. After pouring in the grenadine, orange juice and pineapple juice into a glass with ice, it was time for the blue mixture as the final layer and I was done with my first Perfect Drink.
It was the most beautiful drink I have ever made. I was so proud of myself. I took pictures and showed them to anyone who would listen for the next week like a proud parent. However, I was a bit too excited in the moment and didn’t think through some elements that might have been helpful if I’d paid attention to them earlier. First, there were useful tips on assembling the drink on the left panel of the app screen. I completely missed those while I was so intent on getting the pour to weigh out perfectly. For the Rainbow Dee-Lite it suggested pouring the layers over the back of a spoon for smoother unmixed layers. Not a huge deal, but it’s probably a good idea to read through all of the steps of the recipe first if you’re easily distracted, like me. To do that, you have to tap ahead through all the drink steps and check the panel on the left each time.
My very first Perfect Drink, the Rainbow Dee-Lite. Not bad, right?
A Rainbow Dee-Lite as shown in the Perfect Drink App
Another aspect I didn’t think about was the fact that I had attempted to make two layered drinks at once but in the same glass. This amounted to a double portion drink because in order to split it I would ruin the presentation by stirring together the layered ingredients and then pouring them into two separate glasses. The rainbow absolutely had to stay intact. So instead I opted to be the bigger person by taking the doubled up drink for myself and making a single for my friend.
Next, my friend and I were feeling the need for a little pick-me-up and wanted a coffee drink. Fortunately, I had randomly picked up some coffee liqueur during Blue Curacao Hunt 2015. I didn’t quite have the ingredients on hand to match what the app was telling me I could make based on the ingredients I had entered earlier, so we decided to let the app guide us as far as measurements and let intuition take us the rest of the way. I had my friend take the lead as she has a natural knack for mixology, and Susie’s Red Eye was born: a mixture of coffee, vodka, coffee liqueur and half and half shaken up and then poured over ice.
My drink concoction, Susie’s Red Eye, officially saved in the app
Upon entering it into the app to save the recipe we decided that a finishing touch of a cinnamon stick would be perfect, if we had had a cinnamon stick, which we didn’t. So we added that to the recipe too. We weren’t very scientific about the shaking; we just decided it was fun to do and that it must be a step in the instructions. Within Perfect Drink, a programmed recipe that calls for shaking has a timer to let you know exactly how long to shake the drink so it’s mixed without being watered down.
Further ventures with Perfect Drink produced a Sex On The Beach that tasted so spot-on that it had us remembering times spent in Rocky Point, Mexico, spring break territory for University of Arizona students, where that drink is abundant: “It’s good! Tastes like a dirty bar in Mexico, brings back memories!”
Perfect Drink Appletini
I learned along the way that sometimes you just need to make substitutions for ingredients and call it close enough. The Sex On The Beach called for cranberry juice, but I only had cranberry pomegranate juice. It worked for me, although it didn’t look exactly like the picture. My friend wanted to recall her days of being 21 and asked for an Appletini. The recipe called for a cherry garnish, which I did not have, so instead I added some grenadine at the end. Again, it was close enough for me!
The Perfect Drink bartending system from Pure Imagination definitely lends itself to entertaining. With a suggested retail price of $49.99 it’s not too expensive to try out with a crowd and make it the highlight of your next party. Darin Barri, Partner at Pure Imagination, tells me that customers have been throwing Perfect Drink parties where guests bring a bottle of liquor or a mixer. All the ingredients are then entered into the app and folks make drinks from that. I will be trying this for sure because the worst thing about Perfect Drink is all the money you will end up spending on alcohol. It’s so much fun knowing you can make any drink under the sun that you can easily get carried away in the liquor store, so beware, gentle readers.
This story was originally published in the April 2015 issue of Kitchenware News, a publication of Oser Communications Group.
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