- This thing was everywhere, endorsed by Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsey, in every other one of my Instagram ads, especially now that I've said it out loud. (cheerful music) - The ATK reviews team has
been hard at work all year, testing hundreds of products
in all different categories. - Lisa and I thought it
would be fun to show you some of our favorite and
least favorite products that we've reviewed recently. - [Lisa] Hannah and I are
gonna give you the full rundown on all the gears so you
can decide what you want or don't want in your kitchen. - First up, Lisa. (upbeat music) - The first piece of gear
I wanna talk about is the eighth sheet pan, and
that is this little guy, it's called an eighth sheet pan, because it's an eighth the size of a full sheet pan you
see in commercial bakeries and restaurants, so this
is the half sheet pan. This is the sheet pan
we normally talk about, because that huge one doesn't
fit in most home ovens. This is the size that we use all the time in the Test Kitchen as
a standard sheet pan, but it's called a half sheet sheet pan, because it's literally half
the size of a full sheet pan. This is the quarter sheet pan. Again, half the size
of that half sheet pan, a quarter of the size of the full pan. And here's our newest
baby member of the family, the eighth sheet pan, and this is one eighth the
size of a full sheet pan. We're gonna talk about the
little guys today, the quarter, and the eighth sheet pans. These are incredibly useful pans. They're made by the same company as the half sheet pan we prefer, which is the Nordic Ware Naturals. It's an aluminum sheet. It is uncoated because
these are real workhorses, and you don't wanna worry about a non-stick coating
getting scratched or coming off. You wanna be able to use
it under the broiler, under high heat conditions. The quarter sheet pan is a great size for just doing a couple
of portions, chicken or some squash or some kind of side dish that you wanna make. It fits right in the toaster
oven, and it's really handy. The eighth sheet pan,
similar, even smaller, even more compact, so if
you're toasting some nuts or just doing a couple of cookies, you can refreeze balls of cookie dough, and bake just one or two to have as a nice little
snack without being tempted by a whole plate. These pans are great for
any kind of Mise en Place. You can lay out your ingredients. You can use it as a little tray. We often do that. Any sheet of metal can warp
under the right conditions, but these are pretty
sturdy compared to the lot of the other kinds that
we've seen on the market. One of the reasons we love these one and a quarter inch sides that are nice and straight
and have this rolled rim is that they're great and easy to grab, so if you have a pot holder on or a towel, you can really grab these
when you're putting them in and out of the oven. They hold all the ingredients
inside really beautifully, and they're just really easy to maneuver. Some of the other ones we've
tested in the past have not been as easy to grab and to maneuver, and just don't do the same job. So if you have the quarter sheet size, I just wanna show you some
fun accessories for it. They still don't have these
for the little eighth size, but there's a lid. So if you're gonna take this
to a potluck or something, this little lid pops right on
and lets you travel with it. It's great. And if you're going to do something where you want it raised up, like say you're frying something
and you wanna put it on to drain or you wanna broil with this, there's a little grid style
cooling rack by Checkered Chef that fits right in here and it's great. It's nice and tight and has little feet that's very supportive. This also works as a
cooling rack for the pan when it comes out of the oven, so you want a cooling
rack that fits this size, there you go. So again, we really love these. It's the Nordic Ware Naturals
uncoated aluminum sheet pans in the quarter sheet
and eighth sheet size. They're great if you have limited space, or you just want some more
versatility in your kitchen. Next up woks. Now, just a couple years ago I tested woks for the Test Kitchen for the first time. We had always recommended using
a 12 inch non-stick skillet for stir frying because we
figured people already had those. Well, we realized we
were really missing out. We talked to Grace
Young, the stir fry guru, the wok expert, the wok
therapist if you will, and she said what we should look for, and even came in and we did a wok off between a skillet and a wok and did some of the same recipes and saw
the advantages of a wok. For one thing, they have high sides. They have plenty of space
for everything to spread out. They're very responsive to the heat, and you can really do a lot more in a wok than you can in a plain skillet. All of the woks I looked
at were 14 inches, and that's from rim to rim. That's the size that Grace
said is really the best size for home cooks. Anything smaller, you see a
lot of 12 inch woks out there, it's gonna crowd the food. It's gonna pile up. It's gonna steam instead of
stir fry, so that is not good, and she said the materials
you really wanna look for are carbon steel or
lightweight cast iron. The carbon steel woks
are really our favorite. They're very lightweight. They're very easy to handle and lift even when they're full of food. A lot of times with woks,
you're putting food in and out of the wok, and
you don't want something that is going to be hard to lift and to work with. We liked the ones that have wooden handles because you can grab them
without a pot holder. Our winner at that time
was the Taylor & NG natural nonstick wok, and that means
that it was pre-seasoned in the factory. It's heated up. the carbon steel acquires
this blue kind of color to it. This gives you a little bit of a leg up on seasoning the wok. These are carbon steel, they're like carbon steel skillets. You have to season them. They're gonna turn black over
time and acquire seasoning, which makes them non-stick, but naturally. We still love everything about this wok. The problem is it's sometimes
been a little hard for people to get. There's been a huge demand, so just recently I went
back out and looked for similar woks that have
the same characteristics that we love in this wok, and now we have some
co-winners to recommend that are much easier to find. So let's talk about this one. This is by Imusa. It is also, like the Taylor
& NG, 14 inches rim to rim. It's made of carbon steel,
weighs about three pounds, has the wooden handles,
has a seven inch flat area. It does not come with a lid. We really do recommend getting a lid. You could buy the lid separately. It costs a little bit
less than the Taylor & NG, but once you buy a lid separately, it comes out to about the same price. The handle is a little thicker. It flares out a little
bit, has these facets. For people with smaller hands, it's a little bit more of a a stretch, so that was just slightly
more awkward to handle, but otherwise, in every other
way, it performed beautifully. It acquired seasoning very
quickly and I was able to do all of the same recipes very successfully. Then there's this one. This is by Joyce Chen. All the same characteristics that we loved in the Taylor & NG, the
seven inch flat surface, 14 inches rim to rim, about three pounds, has a nice slender handle
that's easy for people of all hand sizes to grab, and basically does all the same things. Again, it does not come with a lid, so you will have to buy it separately. So it starts out a little less expensive. Once you add in the lid,
comes to about the same price as the Taylor & NG. Any one of these would be a
great addition to your kitchen. I also loved robot vacuums. Now you might not think of
this as a kitchen gear kind of item, but honestly
when I'm done cooking, my kitchen floor is a mess. This is the iRobot Roomba J7+, and this is their latest model. It's really fantastic. This uses way points on the
ceiling and a whole host of other navigational features
to figure out your house. So the first time you run it, it maps the rooms and it sucks
all the dirt up into this. There's a regular vacuum bag in here. You never have to open
the back of this robot, and empty it out, shake it. I've tested a lot of smart
products over the years that just kind of promise a
ton and deliver very little. This actually does what
it's supposed to do. There's almost nothing
I don't absolutely love about this iRobot, but
it is pretty pricey. We also have a great best
buy option that is less than half the price of the Roomba. This is by Shark. It's a Shark Ion, and it's very simple. It just has a really simple little dock. You do have to empty it and
then send it back to the dock to recharge, but it
picks up amazingly well, and when you're emptying this one, there's just a little
grabby pinch and pull up, and you dump out all the
dirt, pop it back together, pop it back on the back, and then this dock, you just leave this plugged
in and it will run back to the dock and plug
itself in when it's done, so it's not smart like this one, it just bumps into stuff
and reverses itself, but it's like a little tank
and it just keeps going, and it covers the whole area as we saw it in our time lapse photo, so this is a fantastic option
and for much less money. You want something that
is really powerful, that has really strong suction, so we did a measured
amount of kitchen mess that was identical for each model, and we put it in a penned area,
so they had the same space, the same kitchen mess,
and set them to work. The best one, this one, pick up 100%. The worst? 59%. That is a big difference. These both had powerful suction. They had batteries that could do the job. They stayed on the job til it was done. They were really easy
to handle, to control. Some of the other ones had apps
that just were not helpful. Both of them can be operated
manually on the machine itself, or with the app on your phone. This one just has a big button
on top, says Clean or Dock. I have to say I have owned
some form of robot vacuum for almost the whole time
this category has existed, maybe almost 20 years. These things are great. Don't get the ones that
we don't recommend, because honestly they're terrible. It will drive you crazy. It will not clean your house as well. We really put these through the paces, and these are the best choices. We loved a lot of the
products we tested this year, but there's a couple we
did not like so much, and this is one that I'm
particularly annoyed by. Don't buy this. It's called the Ninja Creami. It's supposedly a seven in one product that can make ice cream,
gelato, sorbet, light ice cream. do mix-ins, do smoothie bowls. It only really could do
one of them, not that well, and costs much more than our
favorite ice cream maker. Even if you add in our personal blender to make the smoothies, the two of them were less
expensive than the Ninja Creami, and both of them did a much better job. So let's look at how it works. So you take this little jar
and you put your base in there and you freeze that. It has to be frozen hard, and there's tons of rules
about what you have to do and not do. You can't put loose frozen fruit in here, even if you're gonna make a smoothie bowl, you have to like pack it down. It has to be solid, it has to have liquid,
it has to have sugar. You can't use unsweetened,
canned fruit, a lot of rules. It can only do certain things, and it's making sure
that you don't mess up. You take the little carafe down, and this has the lid that locks on. This inside is a blade
and it works as a paddle, and it basically shaves the
frozen base into ice cream, so now you drop the frozen canister in. You latch this on. It's kind of like a food processor, so you line it up, and
then click it, slide it in, and then it clicks in place,
and then I am making ice cream, so I'm gonna hit the ice cream button. (machines whirs) Don't plan on having
conversations while it's running. Okay, let's take a look. This was the problem that we saw. This is kind of soupy. It's not a really good consistency. For the price, well over $200, we want this thing to nail it every time. It literally has one job, which is to make frozen,
delectable treats, and we could not find a recipe that we could get consistent results whether we used our own or its recipes, and therefore we couldn't customize and make all the fun different flavors that you really wanna make
when you buy one of these. So now you've seen some of my
favorites and least favorites from this year. Let's go to Hannah and see her picks. (upbeat music) - The first of my
favorites is a bread lame. You might not think this
little tool is super important, but if you've gotten into making bread, one of these can take your
bread to the next level. So lames score or cut
the top of your bread. This is first and foremost functional. You are allowing the bread to
expand in a predetermined way. If you don't cut the top of your bread, you can get weird expansions
and misshapen loaves. This will help the bread
expand nice and evenly for a consistent shape. Secondly, it's also makes them beautiful. You can cut and score all
different gorgeous patterns onto the top of your bread
to really add that appeal. It also gives you those
gorgeous crusty little bits at the top, which is my favorite part. We just updated our bread lame testing and have a couple exciting new winners. The first is the Baker of Seville. It's our overall winner, and we also like the
Wild Monkey UFO Journey. No, I missed the word didn't I? I will get it without looking. My bread journey, huh? Wild Monkey UFO Bread Journey, so look at this beautiful
little thing right there. I feel like I'm gonna open a
portal to another dimension using this. You turn it, release the blade, turn it back to tighten. Do not cut a finger off, Hannah please. No shedding blood. This is all tightened up. This is firmly in place and this was best for intricate scoring because
you can choke up so much more closely and get that
absolute amazing control and we really noticed a difference. This wasn't our overall winner, 'cause as you can see it's a little dicey. You are handling the
blade much more closely than on other models. There's just a screw in the center, and you're just pushing this in and out. Now I'm gonna seal it back up like that. So we found a few things were really key for a good bread lame. First and foremost, we really preferred models
that were easy to attach and detach the blades. These are sharp. We don't wanna cut ourselves. You do need to change blades
regularly as they dull, so this had to be really
as seamless as possible. Second of all, we really liked blades that
had two exposed cutting edges right here. Not all lames had that. Sometimes it was just one. If it's one, you're gonna be rotating that blade more frequently. This gave you two different options. You can use both sides
and when they both dull, then you can mess around
and change your blade. We also liked that this is,
as you can see right here, is slightly curved. There are curved lames. There are straight lames. There are benefits to each. This allows you to use curved or straight. It actually can change
the angle of the blade, which we love. Some folks really like a
curved blade for baguettes. You can get that angle, get
that beautiful crusty ear. Straight lames can be
a little easier to use because they're straighter. You're not working
around a different angle. Another thing we really
liked was being able to grip the lame a
bunch of different ways. When you're scoring, you're often going in
at all different angles. You're doing different maneuvers. Being able to hold the lame a bunch of different ways made it more comfortable and we could actually get in
and do more intricate work. Let's take a look at a finished loaf. I have this gorgeous one right here. Look how beautiful this is. Now I did this, not our
culinary producer, Jeanette. It's decorative, it's
functional, it's beautiful, and that's all thanks to a good lame. All right, so next up is soft coolers. Now this was a personal quest for me, because a couple years ago
I bought a Yeti cooler, and while it looks gorgeous
and makes a great stool, that thing is so heavy, like you will not see
me carrying that down to a beach anytime soon. So recently on the heels
of these rotomolded coolers like Yeti have come more
high tech soft coolers, so I had to know, is there a way to get
that same ice retention, or good enough ice retention,
in a much lighter package? So we tested soft coolers
and I was totally thrilled with our results because our winner here, the Engel H20 22 quart soft
sided cooler bag is fantastic. This actually kept ice for three days. So the Engle is not cheap, unfortunately, you do pay for that performance. We had a best buy option from Coleman, (buzzer buzzes) and they just discontinued it at the scourge of the equipment tester, but we are on it testing a new model, so stay tuned for our
results there shortly. So the most important
thing with the cooler is, does it keep stuff cold? When you're talking about
a hard sided Yeti cooler, for example, the thickness,
that's why they're so heavy, is really important. With the soft sided coolers
that doesn't come into play as much. We found the most important
thing was something called closed-cell foam insulation. That's when gas is forced into foam, creating these isolated air
pockets that impede the passage of heat, keeping the
contents inside cooler. This is actually very
similar to why Yeti is so successful compared to its competitors. When we compared a square of
Yeti's foam to its competitors, it was actually less dense. It had more air in it, which might seem counterintuitive, but air, it actually creates
a barrier against heat, so the more air locked in that foam, the colder the contents
inside are going to stay. One really important
thing was a smooth zipper. This was not the case
with all these models. Oh, look at that, just like butter. Sometimes they were really stiff or hard. We were wrenching them open. You don't want that. You don't wanna be
fighting with your cooler. You want your cooler to be your friend, so smooth zippers were key. Another thing you'll
notice here is the shape. We really preferred a box shape cooler as opposed to the more classic tote shape. On a tote cooler, you're losing the top to the
closure and this, it boxes out. You just get much more space that way. Some of them are really
cumbersome when they're full. If you pack these up, they
are going to be heavy, so having lots of
different carrying options, especially these side ones
where you can hold it nice and tight to your body really
made them easier to transport. This is one of my favorite
things we tested this year. Like I said, my Yeti is now my footrest, and this is what I'm taking to the beach. If you're not getting enough
ice from your freezer, a countertop ice maker
might be a good option, and this was another one of my favorite things we tested recently. They work much the same
as a regular freezer. A compressor filled with
refrigerant cools metal ice molds, which freezes water into
several different shapes depending on the machine. You fill a tank, some of these had water
reservoirs on the side, some of them were internal. You fill them up with water
and then the machine makes ice. They have sensors so when
the ice is getting low, they will start to make more ice. These are not intended
to store the ice though. The ice will actually start to melt, and they will take the melt
water and create new ice, but if you want to keep the ice coming, you actually wanna take the ice out, and store it in your freezer. So we tested all different models, and this model by Igloo
was our overall winner. A couple different factors went into making a good ice machine, and they were not all good. First of all, this one
is relatively compact, and it has this nice carrying handle. You're adding a big
machine to your countertop, so you wanna make it
reasonably easy to store. This was incredibly
efficient for its size, producing just about a
pound of ice in an hour, which is really good compared
to the other models we tested. It also turned out its first
batch in about eight minutes, so it was fast as well. Not all of the machines
we tested were fast. Some of them took forever, so if you're trying to
like set up for a party, if you forget to do
this way ahead of time, machine's got you covered. Eight minutes, you'll start
to get some ice out of it. We also really appreciated
the different sizes of ice that this machine could make. It's also one of the only models with a self-cleaning function, which really helps with descaling. You really don't want
this to have to be a pain. You want it to be easy to use. You're adding a machine
to your repertoire here. It also had really easy
controls and indicator lights. We knew exactly what it was doing. To get this started today, all I did was pour two
quarts of water, opened up, poured it right in here. Close this up. I selected small ice. You can see right in here. This is the small ice shape. These are the hollow bullet
style ice, which is nice, and it was so easy to use. That was it, literally filled
the water, boop, boop, boop, and it started. Within eight minutes, I could hear the ice starting to fall. We also tested and loved
the Opal ice maker, which is very expensive. It makes that tiny little nugget ice. The thing is fantastic, but it is pricey. Not everybody's gonna want that model. It definitely lived up to its name, but the Igloo did a fantastic
job at a much lower price. So we found brand really mattered here. Some of these were really
slow at making ice. They didn't keep the ice well. None of these will keep ice indefinitely, but some of these, the
ice melted right away, which just was not very useful. Some of them didn't have the output, they weren't producing enough ice. A lot of them were huge, so bulky. They were just not practical
to put on most folks' counters. If your freezer doesn't make enough ice, and you don't have a freezer, a countertop ice maker might
be a great option for you. This is one of my favorite
things we've tested recently. All right, so like Lisa, I had a couple pieces of
gear that I wasn't as excited about this year, and one of
them we tested for you all. So many people were
commenting and asking us to test the Hexclad non-stick skillet, and I understand why. This thing was everywhere. Endorsed by celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsey in every other one of my Instagram ads, especially now that I've said it out loud, so we totally get why y'all
were curious about it. We put it to the test in
the way that we test all of our non-stick skillets. We always start with a
industry standard test, 50 eggs right in a row in a dry skillet. We do a bunch of other
things in the middle like stir fries, frittatas. We cut in these. We're really hard on them, and at the end we do
another set of 50 eggs, that is if the pan makes it that far. This one my friends did
not make it that far, and that's because this
unique Hexclad coating. See these hexagons in here? What Hexclad does is they
carry the stainless steel through in this hexagon pattern, so it's got non-stick and then
stainless steel jutting up through the non-stick, and this is what makes it not non-stick. This is what made it cling
onto all of the eggs. This baby did not make it
through the first 50 egg test. It was sticking right away. The performance was shockingly bad. I was like, "This cannot be true." Got a second copy of the pan. Performed the same exact way,
so this pan was a total dud. You are buying a non-stick
pan for that surface. If you want a regular pan. You want a naturally non-stick
pan, get carbon steel. If you're gonna go for non-stick, we recommend you stick
with our winner from Oxo. Still the best on the market. It's a lot lighter. This Hexclad pan was also really heavy, which makes it hard to do the tossy toss, which I love to do. The Oxo, wonderful shape,
light, super, super release on this surface. So let me show you what I mean. This is our industry standard test. No fat in the pan. Crack the egg right in. (egg cracks) When we're testing, we use a surface probe thermometer to make sure every single
egg goes into the pan at the exact same temperature. All right, try to flip this bad boy. I'm gonna try to, I'm giving it. I'm trying to help this guy out. We never want a pan to fail. We want products to succeed. My friend here is beyond, beyond hope. Ugh, the carnage. It's a blood bath. It's a blood bath, folks. Look at that. Again, the Oxo literally
released a hundred eggs. No problem. This thing just is not
delivering on its promise. I imagine they added these
stainless steel hexagons for durability, right? It's supporting the non-stick. Non-stick is notably fallible. This is why we actually don't
recommend spending a ton on a non-stick pan. Non-stick is a coating of
plastic on top of the pan. It can actually off gas. You can scrape it off. There are all different things
that can destroy the surface of a non-stick pan, so I understand what they were doing here. They're trying to reinforce
and support that non-stick pan. By doing so, they ruined the non-stick, thus making the entire pan pointless. Stick with the Oxo. Hexclad, didn't like it. With Lisa's picks and my picks, you've got a head start
on a couple things you might wanna get or not get
for your kitchen this year. - For more information
on all the gear we talked about today, check out the links below, or go to americastestkitchen.com. - What are you most excited
to buy next for your kitchen? What did we miss? Let us know in the comments. Make sure to like this video, and hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. (upbeat music)
