Cooking Brands Reviews

I'm not sure if Amazon is ever going to run another sale on Cuisinart Chef's Classic, but compared to retail prices, their everyday price is a great bargain. I got my second sauce pot when they ran the sale for $14. I can make spaghetti and sauce without juggling pan sizes, lids or being annoyed! I love it!!

No I don't need the huge several gallon type pot that I use to use when my family was at home, but this is just the right size to fit and boil corn, asparagus, and the chicken for soup or stew.
The handles are very comfortable and they really DON'T get hot. It, along with my other very small Cuisinart Chef pot are the only items I can ever recall that got a comment from my husband saying.. Whatever you paid for this it was worth it.
And he doesn't cook.. just puts the food away.
Cleans up well and I don't have to worry about scratching some coating or other.
I like it. It is very functional and nice looking..can't beat that.

This is a great pot, no burning on the bottom and easy to clean.

The main reason I got this was to make clean-up a lot easier. In all fairness, it is very easy to clean. However, I have used it twice, and both times I used it, it gave off a very strong odor and made my smoke alarms go off. There wasn't any smoke that I could see and nothing was burned. The plastic must give off something that affects the alarm. After it happened the first time, I was too nervous to try it again (the alarm scared my kids), but decided to try again last night. Unfortunately, the alarms went off again, so I am getting rid of this pan.

I used it once, and it worked fine. No smoke as mentioned by another reviewer. I found that it cleaned up just as well as a non-stick metal pan. I just hope they don't come out in a few years and say all this silicone is poison like teflon!

I love this pan! I used it for the first time yesterday and it perfomed exactly as I hoped it would. Followed the directions to "oil" the cups - I used PAM - and the muffins just slid out with no problem. Clean up was a breeze and it is ready to go for the next time. The sled keeps the pans from bending and makes it easy to take in and out of the oven. The muffins also looked very professional - no breaks or pieces missing.

Mr Dances to blue

this is a Bad product ....period ...whatever other ( only one agrees) say about it being a good one ....its not

Think of getting a diff kettle ....as simple as tha

B

i completely agree w/ the other reviews. this is a terribly designed kettle in terms of usability. it's impossible to clean the inside of the kettle. while the handle looks nicely curved, there's no way to pick it up w/o a potholder when the kettle is hot.

the worst part is the whistle/cover. although i've developed a knack of taking it off (after almost getting burnt by the steam coming off the two little holes several times initially), the ball keeps falling off regardless of how many different glues i've tried on. w/o the ball, its asthetic value largely decreases. and yet w/ the chipped paint on a plastic ball, the kettle does not look all that asthetically pleasing anymore.

do NOT even consider this kettle for any reason. it serves absolutely no purpose unless you're decorating a model home where this kettle is for display only.

These are some fussy, fussy reviewers.

First things first. The topper of this kettle is NOT plastic. Maybe the little ball on the end of it is; I don't know. It does look like it is cast and thus perhaps - perhaps - is not metal. It has never come off, and, if it did, I would use my handy-dandy philips screwdriver and put it back on, maybe tighten it a bit tighter.

The handle - yeah, it gets hot sometimes, not all the time. Now that I think about it, as I consider it now while writing this, it seems to me that maybe it's when the kettle is REALLY full that it gets hot enough to be an annoyance, but even then I've not needed a hot pad. Not once. I've had this dude for over a year, and I drink tea every day.

I just boiled some water in the kettle, the tea now steeping. I paid attention to taking the top off. I've learned to let it steam out for a second or two, no longer, and then removed it. If I DIDN'T wait that second or two, yeah, I'd have gotten my hand steamed. But since I SAW steam, and knew that I didn't want to put my hand in steam, I waited the one or two seconds, and then pulled the lid off. WITHOUT, I might add, without using a hot pad or dish towel or pliers, I just grabbed hold of it and took it off. (Hmmm - if that ball IS plastic, maybe it is by design, maybe because if it was metal of any type it surely would burn your hand, water boils at 212 if I recall correctly, and even if I'm wrong I do know that it's plenty hot enough to burn your fingers.)

Regardless what the ball on the end is made of, the lid is stainless steel.

And the lid itself is pretty cool - it kicks up a racket when the water hits a boil but then it quiets down a bit. I don't know if it is by design or I just got lucky with this particular lid. But it does quiet down after yowling for a few seconds, a nice thing if I'm not close at hand and don't want to be annoyed by a screaming kettle.

As far as cleaning out the inside of the kettle - um, what in the world are you all boiling? Tar? Industrial waste? Myself, I boil filtered water. It is as clean in there, as they say, as a whistle. I mean, the whole idea of boiling water is to keep things clean, to steralize them maybe, or perhaps I'm wrong. Do tell. What I CAN tell you is that I just looked in that dang kettle, after boiling that water, and it is spotless inside.

Maybe these are the same types of folks who clean out anything and everything, or maybe they are smoking crack.

I don't know.

The thing is pretty, it works fine, it whistles some and then shuts up til I get there, it's stainless (thus easy to keep clean outside, and shiny), and if the topper ever gives me any problems I will immediately call Cuisinart and I guarantee you that they will send me fifteen other toppers, or twenty, shined, polished, ready for the task at hand; Cuisinart has great customer service, in my experience, they didn't get to where they are by being mopes.

I'm not the sort to write reviews - I read them, not write them. A failing - I confess it. But on reading the reviews about this kettle I felt compelled to add my voice and my five stars (which would likely have been four if I wasn't trying to balance off these inside-the-pot-cleaners, these delicate-handed whiners), to raise it up a bit in the estimation of anyone looking for a fine, stylish, relatively inexpensive tea kettle.

I've been wanting one of these for a while, and I finally gave in to myself and bought one. It's great! I add a dash of sugar free vanilla syrup to the canister, and I have a great tasting spray of whipped cream whenever I want it! So much better than the chemical-laden canned version available at the grocery store, and it stays fresh and ready to use for as long as your cream's expiration date.

I bought the pint size because I didn't want to waste the N2O chargers. It's one charge per refill, so as soon as you open the canister to refill the cream, you need to charge again. That means the half-pint canisters go through chargers twice as fast as the pint. and the cream's been fine for weeks at a time, as long as I buy the freshest heavy cream.

It also look cool to pull out this brushed aluminum canister and spray on top of a dessert or hot drink, just like the professionals. I highly recommend this whipper, and I haven't even tried any fancy recipes yet!

I have too many complaints. First its slow. Second the spout is awful. I always have a mess and I never usually have this problem.
Now the heating element is wearing off. Also if you take the carafe out while the coffee is running it doesnt seem to shut off. So I have to wait for 5 minutes to make 4 cups of coffee. Dont bother. Waste of money.

I purchased this coffeemaker because of the stainless steel carafe. The problem is when you pour coffee into a cup, it goes all over, I have to pour off the kitchen sink. No matter how slow or fast, it makes a mess. The second problem is when the coffee sits on the warmer, it starts to boil. This may be a problem with just this one. I would not purchase this item again.

I love my Cuisinart 4 cup coffeemaker with stainless steel carafe. I chose the red and it looks so sharp in my kitchen. Makes wonderful coffee. I always get compliments on how my coffee tastes so good. I will get another one if this one ever wears out.

And its hard to fill with water..... then the carafe spills while pouring.

What a joke.

DO NOT BUY !

I am not a coffee snob, so I was satisfied with the taste of the coffee from this coffee maker. The flaws are entirely in its design. Apparently, stainless steel and plastic just don't mix -- or at least not the type that Cuisinart chose to use. At first I thought this was a great unit for my apartment, but after a couple of months, problems.

First, it's supposed to stop brewing when you pull the carafe out from under the filter, but mine dripped quite a lot while I was pouring. (I later learned that the manual recommends against using this feature! So why put it in?) Second, the plastic cover to the carafe starts to warp over time, and it's hard to avoid getting a steam burn while pouring because of the way the lid is positioned.

But the real problem came when it started dripping all over my counter every time I poured -- apparently, the seal between metal and plastic rim gradually melts through, allowing the coffee to leak through. The rim and handle finally just broke away today when I gave it a little tug. They could have put a lot more thought into this unit, but seems like they really cut corners on this one.

While mostly a great coffeemaker, I can echo a previous review indicating that the plastic parts can break. On mine, both the filter cup and a connector to the lid just simply went poof for no apparent reason. Cuisinart also suffers from incompetent customer support. I placed an order for parts and supplies via their 800 number that simply went into a black hole. The order never arrived, but my credit card was never charged.

This is a great spatula. It's narrow and flexible so it slides around the bowl easily and scrapes the bowl very clean. I can't speak for long term wear yet but I've used it regularly for several months and it looks like new. I plan to buy another for those big baking days.

I bought a set of 4 pieces (square pan, 2 round pans, loaf) and was hesitant about using them despite the comments that it was safe. The first cake I bake turned out wonderfully. The material is sturdy and maintains its form with whatever you put in it; everything cooks evenly, and when you take it out of the oven its cool to the touch plus it is extremely easy to remove whatever you're cooking from the cookware!! You can also use these to make cold desserts/foods! I absolutely love this!!! Its a plus that it comes in pretty colors-- so it looks good on the inside with your food and on the outside too!.

I think I saw silicone bakeware for the first time on Jacque Torres's PBS show "Dessert Circus" in the mid-90s I did some research and it was quite expensive back then.

Then while watching the Food Netowrk silpats started appearing everywhere. However, I think Marhta Stewart was first to introduce them to TV. I was given two as a present and, yes, they work as advertised.

But I didn't think much of the silicone bakeware until I saw a KitchenAid muffin pan on sale at HomeGoods. I figured for eight bucks, I could take a chance. Anyway, my muffins and biscuits (I've always made mine in a muffin pan) popped right out and were beautifully brown. So I invested in a full set.

For all intents and purposes, these are truly non-stick. The only time I have had problems is when I tried to turn something out not completely cooked through. Then the baked good spilts in the center with the top on the cooling rack and the bottom still in the pan. If the item has retracted from the sides of the pan, like it should, you won't have a problem.

Also keep in mind these are great for frozen desserts too. Make an icecream cake in the bundt pan or a semifredo (sic?) in the loaf pan. Just prress down and sort of peel the pan away from the item.

They are also a snap to clean. You can throw them in the dishwasher or just rinse them out.

I baked two loaves of pumpkin bread, one in my new silicone loaf pan, the other in a metal loaf pan. The silicone one came out so much better, and was so much easier to remove. A little cooking spray before adding the batter and it slipped right out! I will definitely add more silicone to my baking collection.

This was supposed to be the toaster to end all toasters.
We had it for about 2.5 years, and now the toast brown on only one side. The outer heating elements still work. The inner elements work at about 1/3 capacity of the outer ones. We now turn our toast around after a couple minutes to cook the other side. Until we find the next toaster to end all toasters. This one was not it!!

we are firmly convinced that the Chinese place all of the American companies exterior outer casings and logos on the same poorly designed Chinese electronic toasting unit. This brings back the original stigma that was associated with imports stamped MADE IN HONG KONG back in the 1940's. The Chinese consistently do not make good electonic toasting units. This Chinese Cuisinart however, will give you evenly toasted bread, bagels, thick hand cut slices of Italian bread and reheat frozen pancakes well. Plus it toasts the first time, everytime! I feel the 1800 watt unit makes the difference as most others range from 1100 to 1600 watts toasting in any where from four to 6 plus minutes. It toasts evenly and quicker than all of the others we returned. The dial settings are from 1 to 6. We set both at 4 and get toast. I hesitate to use the words "Great toast" as that's what one normally expects to get from a plain ordinary toaster, "TOAST". We have never had such a difficult time in finding a basic toaster that would just toast bread the old fashioned way, on both sides and evenly. One afternoon while at Sam's, very thoroughly frustrated with all of the five toasters we tried and returned, my wife spotted this Cuisinart and said "it's not a bad looking unit, shall we try it?" I flipped it over and saw the 1800 watt heating unit and was somewhat impressed, I said "Sure, why not? Ironically, everytime it pops, we get normal toast and Mom holds it up saying "Look! Toast ! " sorta like a grade school kid with a good report card. Try it, I think you will be be pleased. Now if they just designed it with a nice shiny chrome case (which wipes clean and shiny in a jiffy) it would be perfect!

I bought this toaster at Sam's Club two weeks ago and I love it! It's easy to use, toasts both sides perfectly and browns quickly (as opposed to some others we've tried that took 6 minutes to brown). And it looks great too. With a family where each person has different preferences for brownness, the dual controls are invaluable.

I felt I needed to comment since there were so many bad experiences posted.