Tag: kitchen tools

Price Points: Kitchen timers

Selection of kitchen timers | H is for Home

Kitchen timers are terribly undervalued kitchen tools. If it weren’t for our vintage Junghans wall mounted example many a meal, cake or loaf of bread would have been totally ruined!

I have a memory like a sieve and only its short, sharp ring alerts me to what I was doing half an hour ago. And we’ve noticed that Justin’s mum & dad could do with one too – they’re forever returning to the kitchen during cooking to check the clock on the oven instead of setting a timer and getting on with something else. It’s always good to accumulate a few Xmas pressie ideas so that’s gone on the list.

Here are three timers with various price tags, tick-tock and silent digital models, contemporary and vintage, plain black and brightly coloured, ones that ring and ones that quack! Take your pick!

  1. Tesco Basics timer – £2.50, Tesco
  2. Vintage kitchen timer – £22.00, H is for Home
  3. Alessi duck kitchen timer – £35.00, Selfridges

Price Points: Cake decorating combs

Cake decorating combs | H is for Home

While browsing cake recipes on Pinterest this week, I realised what the one thing would be to make my home-made cakes look much more professional. Cake decorating combs may be pretty cheap, basic tools, but they can make a huge difference to the look of the end product.

For a little over a pound, you can give your iced/frosted/butter cream cake a smooth, attractive finish. Each of the combs featured has at least three different types of ‘teeth’ – giving you a choice in the width/depth of the lines/swirls you make on the top and sides of your sweet creations.

  1. Polypropylene decorating comb: £1.18, Nisbets
  2. Ateco aluminium cake decorating comb: £3.78, Amazon
  3. Wilton 3pc icing comb set: £14.99, eBay

Get Rocknife in your life!

Win a knife set worth £94.95 with Rocknife & H is for Home

A good set of kitchen knives makes all the difference with food preparation. Have you ever tried slicing tomatoes, onions… or even a loaf of bread, with a dull knife? Frustrating, not to mention downright dangerous! You might think that you need to be wary of sharp knives, but did you know that you’re much more likely to cut yourself using a dull knife – and the resulting injury will be much worse.

Set of 5 Rocknife ceramic knives with black & white chequur board blades and lime green handles

All Rocknife blades are made of hardened zirconium oxide (ceramic). This means that their knives are far sharper than ordinary steel, remaining that way for years and years… with barely the need to sharpen. They’re great looking too!

Set of Rocknife ceramic knives with black & white chequer board blades and black handles

The 4-piece set comprises a 3in, 4in, 5in and 6in ceramic knives. It comes with a complementary stand that can either sit on on your kitchen worktop or alternatively, be wall mounted.

All you need to do to enter the competition is visit the Rocknife website and let us know in the comments section below which ceramic knife set you’d choose if you were to win! There are lots of other ways to gain bonus entries once you leave a comment.

Rocknife ceramic knife set giveaway

Forthcoming Attractions: Late November 2013

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selection of recently acquired vintage homewares | H is for Home

Here’s a small selection of our recently sourced vintage homeware items heading to our webshop or antiques centre pitch soon.

selection of recently acquired vintage homewares including set of vintage headphones

We’ll start with a couple of pieces of modern technology. Well, modern for 40 or 50 years ago. The first is these rather cool 1970s stereo headphones. They were produced by Prinzsound & manufactured in Japan. We’ve just plugged them into our system and they’re working just fine – they’d look great with a vintage turntable or mid century modern room scheme.

selection of recently acquired vintage homewares including a green dial telephone

The second is this classic green telephone. It’s PO model no 746F. Modern ‘walk-around the house’ handsets are very convenient of course, but these vintage telephones have got so much presence & design quality. This model has a carry handle and long lead so it could almost be classed as a ‘walk-around’ itself!

selection of recently acquired vintage homewares including an Italian pottery ochre coloured horse figure

Next up we have a bit of a mystery. This gorgeous stylised horse dates from the 1950s or 60s, but we’re not sure who the maker is. It’s marked ‘Italy’ and it does have something of a Bitossi look, but a bit more research is necessary.

selection of recently acquired vintage homewares including a child's toy globe

These vintage toy globes are very cute – perfect for a child’s bedroom or indeed the shelves of a more grown-up lounge. A lovely flash of colour and it’s always interesting to look at the various country locations, name changes etc.

selection of recently acquired vintage homewares including a pair of Figgjo Flint mugs with Viking illustration

We nearly missed these mugs at a recent market. It was only on passing a stall for the second that we spied them amongst a huge pile of crockery. They were produced by Figgjo Flint of Norway in the 1960s and the Viking design is by Rolf Froyland. We have the same design on a pottery wall plaque, but we’ve never actually seen the mugs before.

selection of recently acquired vintage homewares including set of 3 orange enamel saucepans and blue boxed set of Prestige cooking utensils

And finally some wonderful vintage kitchenalia. The utensils are from the Sky-line range produced by Prestige. They have painted wooden handles and are in mint condition. These utensils are often a bit battered when we come across them, so to find a set boxed & unused with the original hanging rack is quite a rare find. The orange enamel pans are lovely too – they’ve got quite a Scandinavian folk art look. We’ve sold examples of this range in blue & green colourways previously, but this is the first time we’ve come across orange.