Welcome to December. Only 20 more shopping days until Christmas. It’s coming fast and the retailers are all putting up many good sale prices on lots of cool gifts. So here are three more great gift ideas for the cook in your life.
In my post for gift ideas for dads on Father’s Day, I told you about the Lodge Cast Iron Cookware. Cast iron skillets and Dutch ovens are always on the top of my Christmas list, and just like you cannot have too much beer, guns, knives, tools, and fun, you can never have too much cast iron cookware.
Next are the KitchenAid Professional 600 Series 6-Quart Stand Mixers. This mixer is great for all of your mixing needs. This is a 250 watt 10 speed 4 1/2 quart mixer with a flat mixer blade, wire whip, and a dough hook. The mixing bowl will hold enough dough for 2 loaves of bread and the motor and drive system of this mixer is more than sturdy enough to handle mixing anything you want to mix in it, from cake batter to the thickest cookie dough. I have blown up several lesser mixers trying to mix cookie dough, but the KitchenAid will handle it all. The flat mixing blade is made out of heavy duty aluminum and is made to last a life time. The wire whisk is perfect for whipping up cream or the best merengue for that lemon merengue pie every body loves. The dough hook will knead dough all day long and keep coming back for more. The bowl locks into the stand so it can’t move and there is even a lock to keep the mixer from coming up out of the bowl when mixing up that stiff cookie dough. The KitchenAid stand mixer also has several attachments that snap onto the front of the mixer to give even more functionality. You can add a meat grinder, food processor or even a sausage stuffer. All of this makes this one appliance that will get used a lot in your kitchen.
Not too long ago, Jen wrote a great post on how to make bread dough from scratch. This is the best way to make really good bread. The flavor and texture is so much better than most of the commercial breads sold in the stores, and you know exactly what is in the bread. I remember as a youngster my mom putting bread dough on the hearth to rise. The smell of the dough would quickly fill the house. Bread is simple to make, but making it from scratch is time consuming. There is not a lot of work to do, but the time it takes waiting for the dough to rise means it will take the better part of a day. For those like me that do not have all day to spend making bread, there is the bread machine. I have had a bread machine for several years and it makes it so easy to make bread. Just add the ingredients to the pan, put the pan in the machine and set the program for the type of bread you are making and how dark you want the crust to be. Start the machine and in 3 to 4 hours you will have a fresh loaf of bread, ready to eat. All of the bread machines on the market come with a recipe book with a wide variety of bread recipes that are sure to please everyone. Most of them also have a dough setting that will mix, rise, and knead the dough for you. This is great for making fresh pizza dough or pretzels. And if that’s not reason enough to get a bread machine, several of the newer ones on the market today have a fast bake mode that will turn out a 2 pound loaf of bread in an hour. I just picked up a Breadman bread maker that will turn out a loaf of bread in 58 minutes. Look for a review of this bread maker here soon.
Clacked by Jeff Love
on Dec 05, 2009 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
