Foo - Useless appliances

I was shopping today and saw this on clearance:

http://www.stuffcookswant.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/cupcake-maker.bmp

A cupcake maker? What happened to using an oven? And you can only make six at a time, which means you'd have to run it four times for a standard cake mix.

It was sitting right next to the Quesadilla Maker, also on clearance, that looked like a round griddle with a hinged top.


I'm wondering who would buy this when most homes have kitchens with ovens.

Every wine opening apparatus aside from the wine key is a useless appliance. None actually make the process any better than the wine key. They're all just made so fools can pad the pockets of the company owners. The above is a similar situation.

The cupcake maker is mostly useless, but my mom put on her grandma hat and bought one for when the grandkids come over for a couple reasons:

1. Less time to heat up than oven, wastes less energy
2. Produces WAY less heat - her oven is built in the wall surrounded by bricks. In summer, it turns the kitchen into a sauna
3. Easy to customize each batch. Throw sprinkles in some, blueberries in other, etc

It is mostly gimmicky though.

My useless appliance in the juicer that's been sitting in the cabinet, untouched, for years and years now. It works OK, but makes a big mess - resulting in way too much prep and clean up time. But it's still sitting there.

Almost everything at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

In our house, It's the rice cooker. Since my wife went on the SCD, I'm the only rice-eater in the house, so I just make it on the stove.

Let's see...

The stand mixer, the spice rack, a small George Foreman grill, there might be a food processor/blender somewhere, and a Pyrex set (still in the box) that my wife bought on Black Friday last year. She tends to buy a bunch of crap to make her life easier in the kitchen, yet she prepares maybe one meal a week for herself and about once every 3 or 4 months for the family...

These are the most completely useless appliances ever. Very common in apartments in Beijing, but I've seen some in Shanghai and elsewhere, too:

http://image.tradevv.com/2008/12/30/cnsongyi_217246_600/dish-dryer-with-u-v-and-ozone-sterilization.jpg

It's a dish sterilizer. What you do is you wash your dishes, and then put them in this thing to sterilize them. It doesn't wash the dishes, it just sterilizes (OK, and dries) already-clean dishes.

The most annoying thing is that they're usually the size of a small oven and are installed in the same place an oven would go -- but instead you've got this COMPLETELY useless glorified dish rack.

Anything sold on TV infomercials

Hey hey hey...

Watch what you say about food processors.
I use mine to:
Make pie dough.
Make hummus.
Chop nuts.
Chop onions and peppers for marinara.
Puree soup.

And it does them all very well without making a big mess.

Dishwashers, you have to pre-clean the dishes! What kind of BS is that?! for that I'll just wash the damned dishes myself and get the job done right the first time! :lol: I have one 'cause it came with the house, but it will cease to be in a few weeks! Bruhuhahaha!

Brick Bread makers.
I have an oven and it makes bread from any recipe.




I have seen many a powerfully stupid tool on various construction sites. For the life of me I can't decide which was the most asinine.

Dishwashers, you have to pre-clean the dishes! What kind of BS is that?! for that I'll just wash the damned dishes myself and get the job done right the first time! :lol: I have one 'cause it came with the house, but it will cease to be in a few weeks! Bruhuhahaha!
But they can also store the clean dishes until you're ready to use them. Much more space than the drying side of the kitchen sink.

The dish sterilizer is pretty crazy. I assume any old food bits that are still stuck to the plate have been sufficiently cleaned to pose no further risk.

I bet there were a few meatball makers on the shelf below the cupcake makers.

But they can also store the clean dishes until you're ready to use them. Much more space than the drying side of the kitchen sink
The dish sterilizer is pretty crazy. I assume any old food bits that are still stuck to the plate have been sufficiently cleaned to pose no further risk.

Yeah, I'd take a proper dishwasher over a dish sterilizer any day. At the very least, the dishwasher holds a bunch more dishes. And you don't really need to prewash dishes before putting them in a good dishwasher -- it will just help to prolong the life of the dishwasher.

Yeah, I'd take a proper dishwasher over a dish sterilizer any day. At the very least, the dishwasher holds a bunch more dishes. And you don't really need to prewash dishes before putting them in a good dishwasher -- it will just help to prolong the life of the dishwasher.

+1 Most newer dishwashers have can handle food left on pots and plates.

My dishwasher has a sterilizer function that I've never used. The only time I've ever used that setting was at my parents' house when my dad was sick and we had to be very careful about him getting exposed to any germs.

These are items bought for gifts to inflict on those of us who cook.

We've just stopped using the dishwasher in my current apartment entirely. For starters, it's one of those stupid "portable" ones that you have to roll over to the other side of the kitchen and hook up to the sink (meaning the sink can't be used for anything else for the hour or so it takes to run. And you have to pre-rinse pretty thoroughly anything you put in there. Also, you have to wash again about half the stuff that comes out of it (I swear dishes come out dirtier than they go in). Basically, right now it's just a space to put the cookie jar and other stuff on top of. I swear, if we'd known how crappy it was before we moved in, we wouldn't have taken the apartment, but we've sort of gotten used to washing dishes by hand again and it doesn't really take that much longer than the pre-rinse and put stuff in the dishwasher and then put it away when done we did before.

In our house the oven is a useless appliance. My wife calls it the big white thing that gets hot.

Brick Bread makers.
I have an oven and it makes bread from any recipe.


Actually, our bread machine came with a GREAT meatloaf recipe. Mrs A's diet precludes using it for bread, so that's what we use it for now.

I was in a store once that sold only products advertised on TV, and overheard a woman saying to her friend "I've got one of these, and one of those etc... and none of them work".

Brick Bread makers.
I have an oven and it makes bread from any recipe.


I use our breadmaker all the time. The timer means I can put the ingredients in late at night and have fresh bread for breakfast the next day.

I do like cooking bread in the oven though. I just don't always have the time to do so.

Electric deep fryer. Too hard to empty and clean the oil between uses.

This vibrating face lift appliance. I guess it might have other uses, maybe.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d126/telehammer/face-lift-thingy.jpg

3. Easy to customize each batch. Throw sprinkles in some, blueberries in other, etc
??? It's no easier than using a standard cupcake pan.

My Ex-Fiancee. Absolutely useless around the house except for holding the couch cushions down and keeping track of the TV remote.

Brick Bread makers.
I have an oven and it makes bread from any recipe.

I have seen many a powerfully stupid tool on various construction sites. For the life of me I can't decide which was the most asinine.

I use mine regularly - for making pizza dough not bread though.

My Ex-Fiancee. Absolutely useless around the house except for holding the couch cushions down and keeping track of the TV remote.

Lemme guess- she had red hair, ate bon-bons, watched Oprah,was from Wanker County, and had a sister named Peggy??

I never understood the purpose of this when people have microwaves or regular ovens.

http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/images/4/2007/03/medium_pizzaky[1].jpg

For those who've never seen it, it's a pizza cooker.

How does that thing even work, Cbad?

Heat elements above and below the rotating plate. Think a big rotary toaster.

I don't think I have a single appliance that I don't use. Of course, all I have are:

Oven
Microwave
Toaster
Dishwasher (which I only use as a drying rack.

To be honest, the oven's sort of a waste of space. In its place I could have one of those single burner hot plates and a small toaster oven and cook all the meals I do now. But of course it came with the apartment.

Heat elements above and below the rotating plate. Think a big rotary toaster.

That's just... weird. I guess the guy who designed that didn't have a cat.

I never understood the purpose of this when people have microwaves or regular ovens.

http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/images/4/2007/03/medium_pizzaky[1].jpg

For those who've never seen it, it's a pizza cooker.

With the optional phono needle attachment, it plays LPs and 45s.

That's just... weird. I guess the guy who designed that didn't have a cat.
maybe his ex-fiancee left him one? (the cat) :D

I think they're supposed to do a better job heating the pizza evenly and good for reheating.

I was shopping today and saw this on clearance:

http://www.stuffcookswant.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/cupcake-maker.bmp

A cupcake maker? What happened to using an oven? And you can only make six at a time, which means you'd have to run it four times for a standard cake mix.

It was sitting right next to the Quesadilla Maker, also on clearance, that looked like a round griddle with a hinged top.


I'm wondering who would buy this when most homes have kitchens with ovens.

My wife got one for my daughter so she could 'bake' and not have to use the oven, and I suppose for the novelty. The little cupcakes that come out of it aren't bad, but it's just box mix. It's one of those things that I hope she takes with her when she moves out (but I know she won't).

The worst useless appliance I have ever seen is the hot dog cooker my mother bought. It had two rows of spikes that went into each end of the hot dog. You then plugged it in and electrocuted the hotdog. Made them taste like crap.

Lemme guess- she had red hair, ate bon-bons, watched Oprah,was from Wanker County, and had a sister named Peggy??
Salt-n-pepper hair dyed into various tints, weird food issues, read Mental Floss magazine, was from outstate Minnesota, has a sister named Anne. She just thought that housework was "womens work" and dug her heels in every single time I suggested she pitch in and help me keep our house clean. The net effect was exactly the same, even if I've never sold women's shoes.

Dishwashers, you have to pre-clean the dishes! What kind of BS is that?! for that I'll just wash the damned dishes myself and get the job done right the first time! :lol: I have one 'cause it came with the house, but it will cease to be in a few weeks! Bruhuhahaha!

Amen to that. I much prefer to wash them myself. Gets the dirt out from under my fingernails too. Yeah, I work for a living. My apt has one. I've used it twice in eight months. I'll take the added cupboard space thanks.

Speaking of using appliances for storage, my brother gave his father-in-law a microwave for his birthday. He used it as a breadbox for the first year cuz he didn't bother to read the manual. He'd never used one before. :lol:

But they can also store the clean dishes until you're ready to use them. Much more space than the drying side of the kitchen sink.

The dish sterilizer is pretty crazy. I assume any old food bits that are still stuck to the plate have been sufficiently cleaned to pose no further risk.
:)
I guess if you have a large family you can use it as a dish storage unit but whats the use if they are still dirty after the dishwasher "washes" them? and again, what good are they if you have to prewash the dishes!? The drying side of our sink is just perfect, its the same size of the one we had in our old home were we raised our two girls, and we never had a problem with space then or know. Again I do understand if you have a larger family. :)

Useless appliances have been around for years. I was once given a "hamburg cooker", in the same league as your cupcake maker. Basically, this was two hot plates, joined together with a hinge. You were supposed to press your burger in between the plates, close the buckle, and plug it in. About ten minutes to a nice, done burger.

See the problem here? An appliance that no one really needed, which takes twice as long to cook a burger as it would on a skillet. And how much electrical energy did this thing eat up?

I used it a few times, and that was that.

Anyone who grew up in the 60s and had an older sister, surely remembers those hair dryers that consisted of a huge bag thing they wore on their heads, a length of vacuum cleaner hose, and a hot air blower that sounded like a 707 on full thrust. Were these things really necessary?

My mother had a dishwasher when I was growing up then my little sister could reach the sink and I was promoted to dishdryer and put-awayer. :) I think us kids were the only dishwasher Mom ever had.