Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I am abysmally clumsy.  I regularly burn, cut and bruise myself – in the kitchen, mind you, not at parkour or rock climbing.

And whilst I’m fairly injury prone with sharp things, I seem to be much, much worse with hot things.  Once I pulled a tray of cookies out of the oven, straight into my knee, branding myself with a lovely crescent shaped scar (I no longer bake in shorts).  I’ve burnt myself with hot liquids, hot handles, hot trays and hot tools.  I gave myself a really bad burn once trying to rescue a cordless phone that I’d dropped into a pot of curry.

In an attempt to do something about the burns, I went on a quest to find really good oven gloves.  I tried silicone mitts, which are fine for some things (like pulling jam jars out of boiling water), but I desperately wanted moveable fingers.

I’d read about flameproof Kevlar gloves worn by racing car drivers, but they were both prohibitively expensive AND nearly impossible to find.  In the end, my cousin-in-law Brian suggested welding gloves.  The man is a genius, because these thick leather gloves are absolutely fantastic.

We found them at Gasweld for $6/pair and they have revolutionised my kitchen life. Because they’re long gloves, I no longer burn myself on the oven racks as I pull loaves of bread off their baking stones, or steam-burn my wrists when I lift the lid off a boiling pot of jam.  They’re heat resistant, but not heatproof, which means they’ll get quite warm after a little while (especially if they get wet), but for the day to day “dealing with hot things” in the kitchen, they’re absolutely perfect.

We’ve had dark blue ones for a year now, and I’m about to replace them with the gorgeous red ones in the photo.  Best $12 we’ve spend in ages!

. . . . .

Another reason welding gloves are cool…read more….