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Oct 17, 2024

Watch 5 Brunch Gadgets Tested By Design Expert | Well Equipped | Epicurious

Released on 10/14/2021 Let's try it again with a large egg and that worked. Oh, congratulations, we have twins! What should we name them? Shelly is one. I'm Dan and I've been designing kitchen gadgets

Released on 10/14/2021

Let's try it again with a large egg and that worked.

Oh, congratulations, we have twins!

What should we name them?

Shelly is one.

I'm Dan and I've been designing

kitchen gadgets for 40 years.

I'm going to test some brunch gadgets and see if I can find

a way to make them better.

Curving this a little more severely,

maybe even a little flatter,

but I would keep this middle section wide open.

These are the products I am going to test.

Egg scrambler, hand-cranked batter, dispenser, bagel slicer,

egg shell cracker, manual fruit juicer.

Egg scrambler.

Its purpose in life is to separate and scramble

an egg while also kind of looking like an egg.

Let's see how effective it is.

So let's try to separate the egg first.

And the first thing I need to do is separate the top from

the bottom, and that is not happening easily.

There's just nothing to pull or grab onto here.

There it goes.

Gonna put the egg separator in place and let's crack it.

And it is not separating.

These openings are just not wide enough to let the white of

the egg fall through.

And even if I'm able to do this with a knife or a fork,

there's still a lot of egg white left in the top.

This is kind of gross.

Okay.

I'm going to deem that a failure.

So let's try and scrambling the egg.

I'm going to put the yolk back in with the white.

Put this aside.

I will put the agitator ball inside,

put the top back on same way.

It didn't want to come off.

It doesn't really want to go back on,

but that looks okay.

And let's shake it up.

Nine, ten.

Okay.

So I've got a little bit of egg white on my hands that is

not going to allow me to separate this.

Hm, whew.

Again, that wasn't that easy.

And what I've got is a scrambled egg

with a yellow agitator ball inside.

Let's see how the egg scrambler compares to using just a

plain old bowl and fork.

[bouncy music]

This seems to work,

it's been working for years, maybe centuries.

And it seems like the way to go.

In terms of effectiveness,

I'm giving the egg scramble a four out of five,

and that's only for scrambling the egg.

It's not about separating the egg,

which was actually a pretty dismal process.

I'm focusing on the good side.

Be thankful.

Let's test its usability by making my non-dominant hand

slippery and trying this again.

It's going to highlight any deficiencies in the design.

So let's oil up.

I have a feeling this is going to be ridiculous.

There is nothing to grab unless I really want to risk my

fingernails getting in the wedge here.

Boy, this is not, that wasn't easy.

Let's crack open an egg, drop in the agitator ball.

Put the top back on.

Really does not want to line up easily.

Now I can't spin it tight.

So I'm just going to hold it tight.

Hope it doesn't leak.

The result is the same, if I can get to it.

Which I can't.

In terms of usability,

I would give the egg scrambler a zero out of five.

It is just hopeless.

It really is unusable at all.

It's almost as if the people who designed this just want you

to dig into that egg and just spread that salmonella

all around the kitchen.

Let's see how I would redesign this.

I'm going to assume that we're going

to stick with the egg shape.

I would give some sort of finger indents

to give a way to twist this.

The other thing that needs to be done is that it needs to

have some sort of visual cue, as mentioned before.

And I can't get this off again.

Some grooves in here that lock the two halves together.

Unless those two grooves line up,

I know it may be hard to see, this little key here,

this little groove here,

wants to match up with this protrusion here.

So we need some sort of visual cue.

I think what that means is even though I drew finger

grooves as if they're on the top,

I think I would extend that down into the bottom half

because at least you'll be able

to orient the top and the bottom half.

It's going to compromise the egg shape a little bit,

but I think that's life, get used to it.

Another thing I would do is rethink this part,

the egg separator,

the part that separates the white from the yolk.

The grooves here are just too skinny

to let the thick egg white go through.

So solution there, just widen those.

But I don't think even if you almost

doubled the size of those grooves,

I don't think the yolks are going to fall through.

In terms of a buy rating,

I would give the egg scrambler a no.

Wait, that's not a number.

I would give the egg scrambler a zero.

No, I wouldn't recommend this for anyone.

You'd probably use it once and say,

forget it and go back to the fork and bowl.

Agitator ball, you have agitated me.

Hand crank batter dispenser.

This is designed to whisk, mix and pour a pancake batter

directly onto a griddle.

Let's see how effective it is.

I've got my ingredients pre-measured already.

So I'm going to start by putting in the flour.

Let's see, let's put in the butter, some salt, sugar,

some baking powder and an egg.

And lastly milk.

Okay, top back on.

And let's start cranking.

It's a little unstable as I'm cranking,

the top is, really wants to be held.

So there's not a really great way to hold this down,

but I'll just improvise.

What I am noticing though is that,

there's lots and lots and lots of flour on the

bottom that is not being mixed.

Like a lot.

What I would need to do now is get a fork or something else

to go down there and stir up that flour,

which kind of defeats the purpose.

To the griddle.

Okay, let's make some pancakes.

So let's give it a squeeze.

Uh-oh, got some flour in the hole.

Oh, here we go.

We'll give it another shot.

This isn't the roundest pancake I've ever made.

Let's try this again.

Okay, that one's doing a little bit better.

We're a little bit lumpy in the batter.

Whoa, that pancake's a little too large.

But I do think the batter is a little soupier

than it should be.

I think some of the flour still

did not get mixed in as it should have.

As a result,

we've got pancakes that have blended together.

Pancake 1, 2, 3.

Okay hand cranked batter dispenser,

let's see how these pancakes taste.

They taste fine.

I don't know if it's my imagination,

but I'm not sure the batter

was mixed as well as it could have been.

Let's see how the hand cranked batter dispenser compares to

making pancakes the good old fashioned way.

[bouncy music]

Unlike before, I'm more convinced that the batter itself

is just mixed better.

In terms of effectiveness,

I would give the hand cranked batter dispenser

a one out of five.

It just didn't make sense to have a device like this and to

have to go in with another utensil

to really finish the job up.

Okay, let's test it usability.

Now, given what happened last time,

I'm going to start now by pouring in the milk first and

maybe that's going to help with mixing.

I am going to crank with my left hand and just hold it with

my right hands.

Flour's floating on the top now.

It's not mixing.

So we're at the griddle.

I'm going to not only oil on my hands,

but I'm going to oil the griddle.

Okay.

I'm going a little bit slower with squeezing it.

I feel like it's in more control, but again,

I think it's because the batter was mixed a little better

and we're a little bit thicker on the batter.

This time, blueberries.

We love blueberry pancakes.

In terms of usability,

I would give it a hand cranked batter dispenser

a three out of five.

It's not the greatest product in the world,

but I'd have to say if you had to use it,

I think you'd be able to do it.

In terms of taste stability,

I would give these blueberry pancakes five out of five.

Let's talk about a redesign.

So someone needs to rethink these whisk like wires because

they are not reaching all corners of the container.

There are a couple of ways to do that.

One is, I guess obvious,

just shape these so that they actually do come down

and touch the side.

I think also what I would do is make the top,

I would make this a screw top.

So it's a little bit easier to screw on or unscrew.

Maybe there are a couple of things I can go on discussing,

but I think there is definite room

for improvement for this device.

In terms of a buy rating,

I would give the hand cranked batter dispenser

a one out of five.

If you have to go in with another utensil,

then what's the point?

Nobody comes between me and my pancakes.

Bagel slicer.

It's purpose in life is to slice a bagel

in one single motion.

Let's see how effective it is.

So we're in New York City,

this is a New York city sized bagel.

It's pretty large.

Let's put it in place.

I'm going to close it up and we're not exactly locking

the way it should.

Boy, this bagel may be just a little too fat

to allow the two sides to close.

So let me just hold the two sides closed

and let's see what it does.

Ugh, it's not working that well,

although I guess it's slicing, I can feel it.

The two sides are not going to open.

They are locked shut until I lift

the lever back up to vertical position.

And let's see what we did with the bagel.

A well sliced bagel.

Let's try a smaller bagel.

I'm going to place it, again, this is not clicking in place.

Let me try something here.

When the bagel is not there,

it's not really clicking in place anyway.

Maybe it really doesn't want to click in place.

So let's see how using the bagel slicer

compares to using a bread knife.

[bouncy music]

The bagel slicer had a couple of problems,

but I will say I did feel a whole lot safer using it.

In terms of effectiveness.

I'd give the bagel slicer a a five out of five.

It did what I expected it to do.

It had just a few problems,

but I think I would recommend it.

Time for the left-handed oil test.

I'm going to open the two sides.

I've got a pumpernickel bagel, pumpernickel bagels,

not at all controversial.

Blueberry bagels, no way.

It sliced really evenly right down the middle,

probably more evenly than I would do with a knife.

In terms of usability,

I would give the bagel slicer a four out of five.

I feel like it should have closed and locked itself shut,

and that's just dropping it down a point.

It's not a horrible problem.

So let's talk about a redesign.

I think the biggest thing I would tackle is the fact that

these two sides, when a bagel is in place,

it's just not holding itself closed.

And the problem is bagels don't have a hole in the middle

that's this size.

Because of that, we've got this part here

that's going to cause that bagel to push the sides open.

I would probably not come in that much with the sides,

but I would keep this middle section wide open

or at least make it wider.

The other thing I would watch and rethink

is the way these latches work.

When this closes, you want to have a really good click.

What that would mean is that when you close it,

not only will you hear it closed with a really definite

click, but you'll also feel it click closed.

So you'd have that sort of haptic feedback or tactile

feedback when you close it.

So you know that the bagel is locked in place.

In terms of a buy rating,

I would give the bagel slice at four out of five.

It has a couple of faults,

which would have been easy to eliminate those faults.

But in either case, I think it does its job.

At least they keep your fingers safe, Dan.

Oh, I appreciate that.

Egg shell cracker.

Its purpose in life is

to crack open an egg with one squeeze of the hand.

Let's see how effective it is.

So I'm going to start first with a medium egg.

Let's put it in place.

I'm going to give it a squeeze,

one handed squeeze and it cracked and emptied the egg,

and I'd say that was pretty successful.

So what I've got to do now is get rid of the shell.

And let's try again.

Let's put in another medium egg.

I'm going to squeeze it, and that's okay.

Any shell droppings?

No, I think it's pretty clean.

Let's try a large egg.

Gonna squeeze.

We don't have any shell in the bowl.

So this is working better than eggpected.

And I was forced to say that.

Let's see how the egg shell

cracker compares to using the rim of a bowl

and just my hands.

[bouncy music]

I think using the bowl and my hands was a little quicker.

My technique sometimes is a little more successful than

others in terms of getting a shell inside.

But I would expect that would be

the same with the egg shell cracker.

in terms of effectiveness,

I'd give the egg shell cracker a five out of five.

Even though I feel that the eight shell cracker works okay,

I'm not sure it's really necessary.

Let's test its usability using a slippery left-hand.

Let's try again with a medium-sized egg,

put it in place, squeeze it.

That worked just as well as with my right hand.

Let's try again with a large egg.

It's taking just a little more force to squeeze it,

but not much.

And that worked.

Oh, congratulations, we have twins.

In terms of usability,

I would give the egg shell cracker a four out of five.

I think it worked pretty well.

I have a couple of thoughts about redesigning it to make it

just a little more user-friendly but I think it was okay.

Here's what I would think about a redesign as I'm squeezing

this, these edges are rather, they're not really sharp,

but they just don't feel like it's

that friendly to your hands.

What I would think about is curving this a little more

severely, maybe even curving it

so it points in a little bit.

I think the other thing I would do, and again,

this may just be aesthetic on my part,

but instead of having the spring wrap around,

I think I would make this spring

just move in a straight line.

So I would come up with something that would hold the spring

a little more outside,

so it's not wrapping around the front of this.

So that being said,

I wouldn't go too much further than that.

In terms of a buy rating,

I'm going to give the eggshell cracker a three.

For some people they may love it.

It's really kind of clever and fun to use.

For other people may be a one, just not necessary.

So I'm going to shoot right down

the middle and give it a three.

Just like Savage Garden said, ooh, I want you,

I don't know if I need you.

Manual fruit juicer.

It is designed to squeeze juice out of fruit,

with one push of the lever.

I'm going to try this first with half of an orange,

I'm going to just start squeezing,

push down, push down, push down.

Good, that little plastic piece popped up.

I think maybe half an orange was a little too much for it.

See what we got.

Okay, well that's something.

It does look pretty well squeezed out,

but I'm going to try it again.

This time I'm going to cut the orange

into quarters instead of using the complete half.

I'm gonna place it in, squeeze again.

It's feeling like it's fitting in there better.

And let's pour it out and see where we get.

Not too bad.

Let's see how the manual fruit juicer compares to using just

a plain old wooden reamer.

[bouncy music]

Given a whole lot of oranges and making a lot of juice,

I would definitely prefer the manual fruit juicer.

In terms of effectiveness,

I would give the manual fruit juicer, a five out of five.

It does what it's supposed to do,

and it does that with probably

a five to one mechanical advantage.

This little egg shape thing that we're pressing.

I do feel a pressure point here,

which I wasn't really noticing before.

This tastes pretty good,

but I think I have a way to make it taste better.

When you are talking about brunch,

it's mimosa time.

Okay.

Oh yeah.

Five out of five.

What do you all think about changing my name to Dan Mimosa?

In terms of usability, I would give the manual fruit juicer

a five out of five.

It does what it does and it does it effectively.

And I think it's a keeper.

Also, I drank a lot.

So I'm in a friendly mood.

One of the things I will look at is redesigning this piece

or at least having it sit inside a little more gracefully

because it just doesn't want to seat itself easily.

And what that's going to mean is redesign,

there's some tiny little feet here and I would just

exaggerate that so that this falls in and just drops

perfectly into place.

The other thing I would look at doing is if anything,

I would take this top piece.

And I think I would make that a bit bigger,

maybe even a little flatter,

because I think it would alleviate some of the pressure on

your palm as you're pushing down.

All that being said, it is what it is.

It's large.

It's not going to fit in your junk drawer.

It's a bit heavy, but I think it has to be.

In terms of a buy rating,

I would give the manual fruit juicer a five out of five.

I think this is a handy thing to have around.

I would say one thing you may notice,

it looks a little insect-like.

So I just hope if you get this in your kitchen,

you don't have dreams at night that it's going to

start to crawl around.

Nobody I know doesn't like brunch.

So what you really want to do,

if you're going to have gadgets to support that effort is

have them work and you're just

going to want to really love them.

And what you don't want is brunch gadgets designed by people

who never make brunch.

And I have a feeling there's a little bit

of that going on here.

No offense, egg scrambler.

I'm Dan Mimosa and I'm signing off.