Cooking Brands Reviews

The lid for this grinder has a weird double wall, and coffee gets between the walls. It is very hard to clean. The only work-around we have found is to load and assemble it upside-down. Then, you can turn it over and grind without too much problem with the seal. Our old Krups never had any such problem. I also bought a Cusinart hand mixer recently, because it used to be a good brand. Both were fair to poor. Be warned.

I used one of these for years to grind coffee before I switched to a burr grinder, which allows more control over the coarseness of the grind. For coffee, I recommend a burr grinder but this one will get the job done, and at less than half the cost.

I use this grinder to grind whole spices (cloves, cumin seed, cinnamon sticks, mustard seed and flaxseed). This little grinder rips through those hard spices in 10 to 15 seconds. I was very pleased that it chewed up the flaxseed. It saved me spending $50 for a flax specific grinder.

Overall, I highly recommend this product for grinding spices and seeds (5 stars). I give this machine 4 stars for coffee, only because I like to be able to control the size of my grinds for multiple brewing options (French press versus drip).

I received this grinder as a Christmas gift from my son-in-law after my cheapo, cheapo grinder went kaput! I am surprised at some of the not so happy reviews because we use this grinder every single day, sometimes twice in one day, and it works really well.

If the grinder is dedicated for coffee or spices, there's no need to clean it (like, with water and soap; just tap around the outside canister and all the excess residue falls off the edges into the cup/blade area.

I really like the grinder, and knowing my luck, this Cuisinart will last a long time only because I've had my eye on a Kitchen Aid coffee grinder (to match the rest of my appliances) and just happened to get this one as a gift. Oh well! But, the grinder is worth the money, and it does what it's supposed to do. Unless you're the type of person who needs directions on how to breathe, this grinder is a no-brainer :-)

I already reviewed the red press however I thought I better review this one as well. Katz from Philly, below, beat me to it. Please read both reviews--this is a poorly designed product, My original review for the red press:
I bought the Cuisinart for the name. Big mistake. After mashing the garlic, the little basket is consistently pulled out and PLOP! falls right into the food you merely wanted garlic in. So....if it falls into very hot olive oil, it can splash onto your hand and you have to quickly find something to pull the basket out of the oil. Bottom line, be forewarned----clever design in the boardroom, very poor design for the kitchen!

This garlic press does not function on two levels...
1.The garlic "basket" comes out with every press therefore you have to reinsert the basket with every pressing.
2. The handles touch each other before you can execute a FULL PRESS..So there is always garlic in the basket that is wasted.
One plus is that it looks good...

Love the Calphalon set. It is easy to clean from the no-stick surface and the paper slips right out of the pan. In the past I've used the stainless steel pans which were MUCH harder to clean and now I can't go back. I still haven't made any muffins with it, but the cupcakes are quite tasty!

I have made muffins and cupcakes in the past with the paper wrappers because I can't stand to scrub out each individual muffin cup. I have tried every non-stick pan out there, and until these, guess what? They all stuck! Each cup would have it's little ring of crumbs that had to be scrubbed. Little tip for paper liner people: if you put 1/2 tsp water in the bottom of each cup before you put in your liners you won't have dark bottoms on your baked goods. Moving on: no more paper liners for me! This pan is truly non stick. I do spray them with a little oil from a pressurized oil sprayer (no propellant, I highly recommed this as well.) and they pop out great! I was surprised with my first batch at how quickly they were browning, but then remembered to adjust my oven temp. Almost all packages and recipes advise you to lower oven temperature 25 degrees or so for darker pans, and these do qualify. Once I adjusted my oven temperature I got perfectly browned, beautiful muffins. I love this pan so much that I bought two and now make muffins for my kids for breakfast often.

I enjoy baking muffins. My usual complaint is that no matter how well you clena the muffin pans after each use, they never stay nice looking for long. These have done so for more than ayear and numerous times in the oven. They are so nonstick, you can almost forgo cooking sprays. The muffins practically pop out ontheir own when done baking. Cleaning is done in a blink. I ammonly disappointed I no longer have these, I had 2. When I was moving, the box these were in disappeared. So I will have to get 2 more. The price, it is great. You can not purchase good Professional Nonstick muffin pans for this price, they are at least 2x's as much. At this price, do as I did, get 2!