Cooking Brands Reviews

Silicone baking pans are extremely cool. Light and flexible, they store easily and don't deform even if you accidentally leave something heavy on them, and you can just peel them off your finished baked good. Since they cool down quickly, you can lift them without potholders after ~5 minutes out of the oven. Plus, I get that thrilling "the future is now" feeling whenever I use them, and sometimes I bake solely in order to be able to use the pan because it's just so cool.

As promised, nothing sticks to this pan, and although the directions say that it needs to be greased, I haven't found that to be necessary. The pan's shiny inside gets clean with just a soft sponge, and it can even be turned inside out to make sure that you get the crease between the sides and the bottom. The one problem is that the pan does not hold its shape well, and so needs more support than other silicone pans that I have used. I paid six dollars, and I definitely got more than my money's worth, but I'm not sure it is worth the much higher price they are asking now.

We were hesitant to purchase the pan because of its cost (less than all the others) and there was no picture to see what it was like. We used it the night we got it to bake corn bread and it came out perfectly. We did spray the pan lightly with "Pam" as per the manufacturers instructions. Baked even through and through with a golden crust. No rubber smell and worth the investment. It did seem to be a little less hefty than our Kitchenaid silicon bakeware but it worked just as well.

This cake pan has a duller inside surface than the Silicone Zone bakeware, but it's rated to 500 degrees instead of 428. And cakes do flip out very easily. It also appears to be well constructed. It's flexible yet strong. Though it's a little floppy, so you do have to put a cooking sheet under it to take it out of the oven otherwise you'll break up the cake. The Silicone Zone cake pan feels a little sturdier, but it has the same problem. When I bend this pan, it doesn't show any white, which indicates no fillers were used. Overall I think it's worth the price.

I just tossed this grinder in the trash can after over 2 years of faithfull service. In fact it outlasted a $100+ Krups coffeemaker. I like my coffee ground very fine so the grounds would migrate from the cup down into the motor housing and then sift out through the vent in the bottom creating quite a mess on the countertop. This morning at 6am after making it's last pot of coffee I decided it was time to clean the coffee grounds from inside the grinder. Simple to do...un-plug, remove three little phillips screws, and dump the old coffee. Everything went as planned until I tried to get it back together. No matter how hard I tried I could not get the baseplate to line up with the motor and the screw holes and the wiring was in the way... so long story short I declared it a gonner. Goodbye old friend, you chewed up many a bag of Verona Blend.

Just got home from Target with the Mr Coffee BMX3. I've always wanted to try a burr grinder so I thought I'd give it a try. Of course I bought it before I read the reviews, which are about 50/50 love/hate. But, none of the other coffee grinders get completly glowing reports either, so what the heck.

Mine was broken right out of the box. The blades wouldn't turn, though a little twisting would loosen them a little. However if you ran it they froze right back up. And I thought the K-mart lady was joking when she offered to sell me a years warranty for it.

Took it back and all they had was the same thing. Seems to work well. Customer service was good at Mr. Coffee though.

I was giving one of these as a gift. I ended up using it a lot and really liked it. I used it to grind flax seeds, and various nuts mainly. It lasted about 1 year until it finally died. Overall its a good product, seemed to grind things with a good consistency as long as I shaked it around and stuff. Only fault I can find with it is that it can be awkward to clean. Since only the lid comes off, with the bowl being attached to the base.

Having been a long time user of a similar product (Moulinex Turbo) for 8 years, my old unit had seen better days and was in need of replacing. So, I made some assumptions about the product based on my experience with my other Cuisinart products and purchased the CSB-33 QuikPrep Hand Blender. Much to my dismay, the Cuisinart hand blender performs nowhere nearly as well as the Moulinex did the day I threw it away. The Cuisinart has a blade that is not sharpened. Consequently, it doesn't cut up food (like blueberries, for instance) very well. It just sort of beats stuff to a pulp, quite literally, and doesn't puree them into liquid. It also has a system of holes around the perimeter of the blade guard that just get clogged up.

I owned a Braun Miniprimer Plus Hand Blender, with variable speeds and broad stainless steel housing for the blades. I had it for years and worked great until the motor finally gave up, but it's no longer available. I purchased the Cuisinart CSB-33 QuikPrep Hand Blender. It is supposed to have two speeds, but really hard to tell the difference and either button needs to be held down very firmly. I always have to use it at high speed and then takes a long time to completely blend. So far I have only used it for light liquids such as protein drinks, sometimes containing a cut-up banana. It can't chop any firmer fruits or vegetables.

It also cannot stand. The flimsy plastic housing for the blades has 3 little knobs on which this top-heavy blender is supposed to stand. This morning I stood it upright in its two-cup plastic container and it immediately fell over, splashing protein drink everywhere, which then ran under my coffee maker, my very heavy mixer and several cannisters. I am thankful I wasn't trying to blend hot soup on the stove.

If you aren't prepared to lay it on its side when not firmly holding it and the container its in, this blender may not be for you, either.

I had this hand blender when it came with the stainless steel beaker cup (which I did keep), the plastic beaker, lid, chopper & 3 blades. I loved all the gadgets & gizmos it came with. It was very nice to start, but once I started chopping fresh fruits...BOOM! --Sounded like a gun went off! It died. Maybe they are different now? hmmm...sounds like the motor hasn't improved too much though.

I'll just stick with Cuisenart's bar blender.