Lemon Crisps: or, More fun with a cookie press!

For some reason, a couple of lemons mysteriously landed in the grocery cart.

Lemon Crisps 1 cup shortening ½ cup sugar ½ cup brown sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind 2½ cups sifted flour ¼ tsp salt ¼ tsp baking soda 2 tbsp lemon juice Heat oven to 400°. Have ungreased cookie sheets ready. In a large bowl, cream the shortening until very soft. Gradually add sugar and lemon juice, beating well. Add egg and grated lemon rind. Sift the flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture a little at a time. Put dough into a cookie press and form cookies on the ungreased cookie sheets. Bake until golden around the edges, about 10-12 minutes (mine were done in 7). Source: Mirro cookie press instruction sheet (undated, but it looks like the mid-1940s)

Today, we are making another recipe from the Mirro instruction sheet. As I've said (often), they may have made a lousy cookie press, but their recipes are fantastic.

One lemon did not yield enough rind for this recipe. Well, maybe one of those giant lemons would have, but oversized fruits are usually bland. Also, I am suspicious of unnaturally large fruits and vegetables. At any rate, we got half a recipe's worth of rind from one lemon, but we got two batches' worth of juice. So as a bonus, we were able to put the surplus (fresh-squeezed!) lemon juice on pasta salad a few days later. 

We do not skimp on lemons in this house.

After creaming everything together, the mixture was a lot paler than I expected. I wondered if I had somehow accidentally undermeasured the brown sugar. But then again, the recipes from this instruction sheet start out unnaturally white. So perhaps it was reverting to its true form.

And so, it was time to get the dough into our press! I decided to try out the five-pointed star stencil. They looked a lot more raggedy than the picture on the box. Since I didn't feel like reloading the dough and trying again, I left them on the pan to see how they baked. 

A lot of pressed-out cookie recipes hold onto their shape pretty well, but these spread out a bit. So in choosing what stencil shapes to use, pick one that will still look cute if it gets a little rounded out. I've said this before, but the stencil shaped like a big asterisk always comes out cute, even when your other cookies look like blobs. 

 

Once again, the Mirro people gave us an excellent cookie recipe. It's a real shame I can't make it using their own press, but I am very glad I nabbed the instruction sheet from some random Ebay seller's page. It makes me feel kinda bad for the people who resolutely made the plain spritz cookies every year for Christmas and never tried any of the other recipes that were right there on the same page.

The small hint of brown sugar gave extra depth to the lemon flavoring without overpowering it. And adding all of that lemon rind was definitely worth it. If you make these, definitely buy two lemons to grate into it. And just like the recipe title implies, they were very crisp. As with every other recipe I've made from the Mirro sheet, I would make these again.

Butterscotch Pie: or, Putting the "sweet" in sweets

You can learn about people from their recipes, including how much they spent on sugar.

Butterscotch Pie 1½ cups light brown sugar (or ¾ cup each white and dark brown sugar) 1½ cups water 3 tablespoons flour 3 tablespoons cornstarch 2 tablespoons white sugar 2 egg yolks (save the whites for the meringue) ⅛ tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla 1 baked pie shell*        Meringue: 2 egg whites ¼ cup sugar ¼ tsp cream of tartar In a small saucepan, bring the brown sugar and water to a boil, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, sift the flour, cornstarch, and white sugar into a medium saucepan. Have the egg yolks ready in a medium or large heatproof mixing bowl. When the sugar boils, pour it slowly over the sifted ingredients, whisking hard as you go. Beat for another minute or so to eliminate any lumps. Then cook over medium heat until it thickens, stirring constantly. When the sugar mixture is thick, start whisking the egg yolks very hard. Continue whisking while you slowly pour in about one-third to half of the pie filling. Pour it back into the saucepan and cook 1 minute longer, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in the butter. When the butter is completely melted and mixed in, add the vanilla. Allow to cool completely. When ready to bake, heat oven to 325°. Pour the pie filling into the crust and bake until it jiggles but does not slosh, about 40-50 minutes. Then remove from the oven and set aside while making the meringue. Meringue: Beat the egg whites until frothy. Then add the cream of tartar and beat until stiff. (Ideally, the egg whites will form peaks almost but don't quite hold a stiff point.) Then sprinkle in the sugar a little at a time. Each time you add a little sugar, keep beating until it dissolves before adding a little more. Spread this onto the pie (no need to let the pie cool) and return it to the oven. Bake until it is browned, about 10 minutes. *If you are making your own pie shell, bake it until it is crisp, but don't let it darken. Source: Handwritten manuscript (1930s or 1940s)

Today, we are once again cracking open my great-grandmother's binder, which has a lot of desserts in it. None of them are of the "mildly sweet" type. As we have learned, these people REALLY liked sugar. Also, I shared this recipe with a friend who said "MORE butterscotch???"

On a side note, I love how her handwriting on this page starts out prim and perfect, and gets more scrawly as she realizes she's running out of space.

Also, I love how she apparently cut a pie recipe out of an actual book (and not just some pamphlet) and discarded the rest of it.

Even though I never met my great-grandmother, she intimidates me with her ruler-straight margins. She wrote this recipe is as rectangular as a printed newspaper column. I showed the page to a friend of mine, and he flinched in terror. It's nice to know that my forebears can scare people from beyond the grave.

I printed the recipe out so I didn't need to worry about getting splats on fragile ancient irreplaceable paper. And so, with her original directions propped up next to the stove, it  was time pour out a lot of sugar and make a pie. 

I've made a few custard pies like this that never seem to set. But this recipe has eggs, flour, and cornstarch in it. If it stays gloppy, it's because the universe itself took my pie away from me.

I didn't see the point of sifting our dry ingredients, but  my grandmother's cursive intimidated me into it. I dared not disobey someone whose handwriting can make people flinch at seven paces. Besides, I have a dishwasher at hand for all the little bowls that were already piling up.

I know it looks like I just dropped a mound of powder onto the counter, but it's in a clear glass bowl.

As we set the first saucepan onto the stove, it looked like we were making the icing for Louise Bennett Weaver's spice cake.

While we waited for the sugar to boil, I thought about how I would finish the recipe. I had originally planned to pour the boiling syrup into the bowl where the "white ingredients" waited. Then, after returning everything to the pot, I would put our egg yolks into the same bowl to wait for tempering. Then I realized I could just put the "white ingredients" in a second saucepan and transfer everything over. (If you're confused, so was I until I reread the original recipe like five times.)

In order to prevent hardened flour curds, I furiously whisked everything while I poured in the syrup. The resulting suds on top made it impossible for me to see if I had any escapee flour lumps.

I should have felt bad about thrashing a whisk in a nonstick pot, but this one is flimsy and cheap. It already has a few spots where the teflon has scratched away, revealing not metal but rust. The sooner this pot is truly ruined, the sooner I can repurpose it as a novelty planter.

Moving on with the recipe, we are directed to "add slightly beaten egg. Cook one minute longer." I'm assuming she didn't write about tempering the egg yolks because this was a personal notebook and not a copy meant for other people. Or perhaps tempering eggs was just as obvious then as discarding eggshells is now. 

 

After giving the filling precisely one more minute on the stove, it was amazingly creamy and ready to receive a lot of butter. When it came to the vanilla, I decided to follow my heart (and the advice of a lot of people who commented about the velvet cookies): use a lot more than one teaspoon. I then tasted the filling and stopped worrying about whether the pie would set. Even if it failed in the oven, it would be amazing on pancakes. It's nice to know that even if a recipe fails, it won't go to waste.

It was time to let the it cool off completely. I took the opportunity to take a lovely long walk in a futile attempt to counteract all the pie I would be eating. It was a lovely evening. 

I had expected the pie filling to be firm when I got back to the house, but it was just as sloshy as when I took it off the stove. As I let the spoon sink into the goop, I worried that I had somehow already ruined the pie. Then I reminded myself that this adventure would either end in butterscotch pie or butterscotch pancakes, but either way the pie filling wasn't going down the drain. 

I had thought I would smear the meringue on top and then brown it. But when I read the directions, it says to "bake in cooked pie shell" and THEN put the meringue on top. This is why it's nice to finally have a working printer in the house! It prevents skipping over important steps when copying directions.

In the absence of any cooking time or doneness test, I decided to let the pie bake until it didn't slosh anymore. Given all the flour and cornstarch in this pie, you'd think it would have turned into butterscotch clay in like two minutes. However, it spent a long time in the oven, during which time the crust slowly burned and the pie stayed as gloppy as ever. The amazing smells took over the kitchen like they were teasing me for my impending failure. Eventually, the pie stopped wobbling and also developed a sort of crispy-looking top layer.

As I pulled the pie out of the oven, I deeply regretted making it with others in the house. I couldn't secretly fling it into the trash it was as bad as I suspected. After baking it for so long, I had no idea if I had little bitty curds of scrambled egg floating in it, if it was burnt from top to bottom, or if it was otherwise bad.

Since the pie was finally baked, it was time to put something white and fluffy on top. I have no idea what the baking powder is doing in the meringue, but she wrote it down and I can't argue without a ouija board. Does baking powder make a difference in meringues? Or does it just fizzle away with nothing to raise?

I also don't know why we're supposed to fold in the sugar. Usually you gradually add it while you're still beating. Does that method only work with electric mixers (or at least a handcranked eggbeater)? But again, that's what she wrote down, so there must be a purpose. I folded in the sugar as carefully as possible, but it took the stiffness out of the meringue. It later occurred to me that I should have used powdered sugar, but by then I was already wiping the countertops.

The meringue puffed up really nicely in the oven. I didn't know if it would deflate as it cooled, but it looked really cute. Let the record show that at least for a brief moment, it was really puffy.

The next day, the meringue was flatter than when I spooned it onto the pie, and showed every grain of sugar that I had folded into it.

I almost couldn't believe it when I cut into this pie, but it was an actual pie and not a gloopy mess. You could lift out slices and everything.

Sure, it was a little bit soft, but it didn't flop, drip, or ooze. Besides, did I really want yet another sharp-cornered pie? Everything in life is a balance-- including pies. We don't want them to drip everywhere, but sometimes our pies can be a little too well-set. Lest we forget:

Getting back to today's recipe: this pie was really good, but it is also really sweet. I mean, it's basically a pie crust full of syrup. I'd like to pretend that this means that just one sliver of pie will do, but it has an addictively good taste and a perfect butterscotch flavor. We didn't have a chance to find out what kind of shelf life it has. If I were to remake this (and I probably will), I would probably make little mini-pies instead of one big one. This seems like it'd be better that way.

 

Second-Stab Saturday: Bangin' Bangor Gingerbread

This may the first brownie recipe that is better without chocolate.

Bangor Gingerbread 1 cup flour 1 tsp baking powder Pinch of salt Spices (adjust amounts to taste, and to what's in your kitchen): 2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp nutmeg 1 tsp cardamom ½ tsp cloves 1 tbsp ginger ¼ cup melted shortening 1 cup molasses 1 egg 1 cup nuts, if desired Heat oven to 325°. Spray a 9" round or 8" square pan. Line the bottom of it with paper cut to fit, firmly pressing it into place. Then spray the top of the paper. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and spices. Set aside. Mix together the shortening and molasses. Then add the egg and beat well. Beat well. Then stir in the flour. Add nuts last. Pour into the pan and bake about 15-20 minutes, or until firmly set. Turn out of the pan as soon as you take it out of the oven, and cut with a sharp knife. These are better after letting them sit (tightly wrapped) for a day. The spices become stronger. adapted from The Metropolitan Cook Book, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, via Mid-Century Menu

When last we saw the molasses-filled Bangor Brownies, we had made the surprising discovery that chocolate and molasses do not mix. Given how well brown sugar harmonizes with chocolate, we had thought that molasses and chocolate would be like sticky brown poetry. Then we tasted the results.

As we discreetly sent the chocolate Bangors to the municipal hereafter, we speculated that this recipe was only a few spices from making really good gingerbread. And by "a few spices" I mean a lot of them. If you sniffed inside the bowl, it smelled like pumpkin spice season was back.

Just like the first time, the batter got unnervingly bubbly in the oven, but turned out all right in the end.

It is a fundamental truth that brown-colored foods rarely look pretty without a lot of photographic effort. But even by brown food standards, today's recipe looked ugly. The molasses turned it an unfortunately perfect shade of burnt. I promise, it's not even slightly scorched.

As is often the way with unphotogenic cakes, it looked better after cutting.

This was exactly as delicious as I hoped it would be. 

I called it gingerbread, but this recipe wants to be brownies. It has that perfect brownie texture, even though the recipe really doesn't welcome chocolate into the batter. Even though I didn't use the word "brownie," my grandmother called me a few days after I gave her some and said "Those molasses brownies were delicious!" And when people say they like something, you don't start a name dispute. 

I think this is the third time that we've improved a recipe by removing the main ingredient. Sometimes you have to follow a recipe even when it takes you away from its own written directions.

Raisin Butterscotch Pudding: or, That got into the oven quick

Two words: "Luscious raisins."

Raisin Butterscotch Pudding 1 cup sifted flour 2 tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt ¾ cup white sugar ⅔ cup raisins (light or dark) ½ tsp grated lemon rind ½ cup milk 1 tbsp melted butter ¾ cup brown sugar 1 tbsp lemon juice 1⅓ cups hot water Heat oven to 350°. Grease a deep 8" square or 9" round pan. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and white sugar. Mix in the raisins, making sure they're well-coated with the powder. Then stir in half of the lemon rind, milk, and melted butter. Blend well. Spread in the pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar over it. Mix the lemon juice, remaining lemon rind, and hot water. Carefully pour over the top. Bake 40-45 minutes. Serve warm. Note: Even if you usually line your cake pans with paper, don't do it with this one. The paper will float up into the sauce as it bakes. Source: Undated newspaper clipping (probably 1930s or early 1940s), Chicago area

By happy accident, our raisin pudding is egg-free. Don't you love when recipes of yore accidentally turn topical again? 

Let us pause and appreciate how amazing it is that you can turn a yellow-brown piece of ancient newspaper into something this easy to read.

This newspaper clipping comes from my great-grandmother's binder, which has been a fascinating insight into people I never met. They always look grimly tired in pictures, which made me expect a lot of recipes like "boil the spinach for forty-five minutes" or pot roasts seasoned with one-eighth teaspoon of pepper. But apparently they really liked desserts.

Getting to today's recipe, the newspaper proudly printed in large type that it is "just bursting with luscious raisins." Given how polarizing raisins are, the writers may have meant for that sentence to entice half the readers and warn off the rest. 

This recipe is undated, but everything in the book seems to be from the 1930s and 40s. Many of the desserts in the binder (and again, there are a lot of desserts) mention stretching your wartime sugar rations, which places them somewhere in the early to mid 1940s. Since this recipe uses a dizzying amount of sugar, it almost certainly came out before the food restrictions set in. 

Setting aside any speculation about this recipe's year, I'm going to guess that the newspaper printed it in the wintertime because 1) you bake it for 45 minutes and most houses didn't have air conditioning yet, and 2) it looks really rich. 

I went slightly off-book and sanded the lemon rind and sugar together between my fingers. This always helps bring out the lemon flavor. This recipe's massive mound of sugar wouldn't have fit into the flour sifter anyway, so this minor deviation both improved the taste and made this recipe less prone to spill onto the countertop.

I did not think this recipe would be so quick. Aside from a brief detour to get the rind and juice out of a lemon, it's as simple as a batch of muffins. First you mix the dry ingredients, then you mix the wet ingredients, and then you stir them all together. I should note that even though the directions don't mention this, I stirred in the raisins into the dry flour to ensure that they didn't hold together in stubborn clumps. 

Out of curiosity, I timed myself the second time I made this, starting after I had all the ingredients on the counter but before I did anything else. I didn't want to include the time spent digging through the shelves and muttering "Now where did the baking powder go?" 

The lemon is in there somewhere.

To keep things realistic, I didn't rush my way through the recipe. And because I didn't want to fudge my results, I didn't do any prep-- not even measuring the flour. I started the clock at the moment I start grating the rind off the lemon, and ended when I shut the oven on dessert. We had this baking in a smidge less than fifteen minutes. That includes digging out a correct-sized pan and also finding where the scissors went so I could open another sugar package. (Again, this recipe uses a lot of sugar.)

Look at this batter, just bursting with luscious raisins!

Also, do not use a paper pan liner in this recipe. See the note in the recipe box.

I was afraid the batter would be difficult to coax to the edges of the pan. But even though it we had to spread it a bit thin, it slid into place easily.

And now, it's time to make this pudding's magic sauce! You see, this is one of those fun recipes that completely rearranges itself as it cooks. What was on top will be on the bottom, what was beneath will be above, and we don't even have to get out second bowl. We only need to put a lot of brown sugar on top, and then pour enough hot water to almost dissolve it. The recipe doesn't say how hot the water should be, so I went with "hot enough to make you say 'ouch,' but not enough to scald your finger."

In case you didn't notice, this recipe puts equal amounts of sugar in the cake and on top of it.

In case you couldn't tell, this is very sloshy before baking. If you don't have a deep pan, the journey from countertop to oven is perilous. 

 

I had suspected that I would end up with a soggy cake, but I could see the water starting to hide under the batter after just a few minutes. I then wondered if the water would take the brown sugar to the bottom of the pan with it, or if the cake would filter it out and leave a crackly sweet crust on top.

When the timer went off, we had a triumphant dome of cake that didn't look soggy at all. You could also see what the newspaper tells us is a "delicious rich sauce of brown sugar" bubbling up from below.

In case I had any doubts about the self-forming sauce, the cake slid back and forth in the pan with every twitch of my wrists-- as if it was floating on something. 

The cake deflated and flattened back to normal within 5 minutes of de-ovening. But when I put a spatula in there, I found that it had leavened a bit. So, I could put aside my misgivings about a hardened layer of dough-paste. This recipe produced an actual cake, just like the headnote promised.

I should note that when I made this again, I did not mix the raisins with the dry ingredients. As the sauce burrowed under the cake, it took the raisins with it. The pudding still tasted as good as ever, but the free-floating raisins looked like bugs. 

The cake should be "just bursting with luscious raisins," not the sauce! 

Even if you mix the raisins with the dry ingredients, they make make their way under the cake anyway. But at least they mostly cling to the underside of the cake instead of turning into free-floating roaches. I could have tinkered with the recipe to try and make the raisins stay in the cake batter while the sauce filtered through to the other side, but I decided to just let the this pudding be what it is. After all, who wants to make a frustrating ordeal out of an easy dessert?

If we take a close look at the leftovers, you can see how the raisins aren't so much in the cake as they are attached to its underside. If you want to borrow the newspaper's phrasing, you might say that the raisins just burst out of the cake.

I love making pre-social-media recipes.

Setting aside our leftovers and how bad they look, the clipping says "You'll get an extra measure of praise from your family." I didn't record everyone's comments, but I'll let the pan speak for itself.

If you're not watching your sugar, this is really good! It reminds me of the apple-raisin man bait. It's so rich, you'd never guess it has no eggs and nearly no butter. Also, the raisins absorbed a lot of brown sugar and lemon as the sauce migrated through the cake. They became, dare I say it, luscious. Even if you hate raisins, this tastes incomplete without syrup-soaked dried fruit in it. So, pick something else to stir in. 

I'm not going to say that every recipe in my great-grandmother's binder is amazing, but it's looking really good so far.

Electric Pizzelles: or, Stepping away from the stovetop for the first time

I let modernity seduce me.

Pizzelles 1 cup margarine 1 cup sugar 4 eggs 2 cups flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. vanilla* Pinch of salt Beat margarine until soft. Gradually add sugar, then beat until light. Add eggs and vanilla, beat well. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Dough should be soft and sticky. Cook until golden on a hot pizzelle iron. Pizzelles will harden and become crisp as they cool. *If desired, you can substitute 1 teaspoon lemon extract or anise oil. Source:Black Angus pizzelle iron instructions

The recipe title says it's "Authentic Italian." I don't know if it came directly from Italy, nor do I care. If I was an authenticity snob about Italian food, I would have missed out on garlic bread.

Black Angus pizzelle iron instructions

My Italian friends (of which I have surprisingly many) have given me semi-slackjawed looks for making pizzelles on the stovetop. So, I decided to try the modern, electrical way. This turned up at a price so low that I barely felt it. Also, you can take the metal plates out for washing, which is a maddeningly rare feature in waffle irons. It's nice to know that if I have a horrible, burnt-on mess, I can soak the waffle grids overnight.

First, I had to ask "What is a company with a name like 'Black Angus' doing making Italian specialty items?" You'd think they'd make grilling accessories or meat smokers or something. I did some trawling online, and found various Black Angus-branded countertop cooking devices like toaster ovens, electric rotisseries, and waffle irons. But I couldn't find any information, not even a vintage ad. I then sent an email to the library in the town that Black Angus was apparently based in, asking for anything they could tell me. Three days later, one of the librarians sent me this note:

I received your inquiry about the Black Angus company and I have been looking into it, but I am sorry to say I have not found much. I have been able to determine that it was located at 41 Meadow Street and that it operated there from around 1970 until sometime between 1988 and 1996. I have been asking some of the folks who have lived in town awhile if they know anything, but they either don’t remember it or can only recall that it made countertop kitchen appliances.
I’m sorry I don’t have more to give you, but it seems the company did not leave much for us to reconstruct its history. If I come across anything more I will pass it along to you.

I was really appreciative that this person went out of their way to ask people on my behalf.

Setting aside historical inquiry, I was amused that our new impulse purchase proudly proclaims on its nameplate that it is a combination pizzelle iron and sandwich grill. I can't tell you how many times I've said "I really want a grilled cheese but all I have is this specialty waffle iron!"

From the look of this thing, at least one previous owner made a lot of pizzelles on it. This was part of why I decided to let myself risk purchasing it.

I had to make grilled cheese on it before committing any pizzelle batter. 

I can't ever get a grilled cheese to cook right on a frying pan. No matter how low I set the stove, the cheese never melts before the bread burns. I know that grilled cheese is so easy that kids can do it, but for some reason I cannot. And so, I flipped the metal plates over and found that apparently no one has ever toasted a sandwich in this thing.

I plugged the iron in, and the little status light soon glowed bright orange. I should note that they didn't tuck a little light bulb in there. It's just a clear piece of plastic, lit from behind by the heating elements. So if you like, you can say that it is a wildly inefficient 1100-watt night light that also makes pizzelles.

And so, it was time to modernize my sandwiches! 

Because I underestimated how hot this thing gets, I burned my first grilled cheese. I like knowing that I can fail at grilled cheese whether I use a griddle or an electric sandwich press. It's a sign that the universe isn't breaking its own laws.

The next time, I made sure to watch it more closely. Our resulting grilled cheese was perfectly golden, beautifully melted, and very flat.

Anyway, I didn't buy this for the production of grilled cheese. (However, if the grocery store ever puts corned beef on discount we will feast on Reubens.) I wanted to make pizzelles the modern, electrified way.

This didn't come with instructions, but I found the sheet online. I decided to make the recipe that originally came with this iron. After all, the people at Black Angus theoretically chose one that would show their products to their best advantage.

Like most cake recipes, Black Angus' pizzelles start off with creaming the butter and sugar. I even followed the direction to separately beat the margarine until smooth, so that if the recipe came out badly I could say I followed every step. (Also, it only took like twenty seconds with an electric mixer.)

This recipe went together as easily as any yellow cake. I ended up adding a lot more flour after it looked hopelessly runny, but I attribute that to the ongoing butter moisture crisis. After one taste of the finished batter, I knew that the immediate future would be delicious.

And so, with great happiness and a preheated iron, we prepared to make our first electric pizzelles! I didn't know if I needed to and preheat the iron for fifteen minutes to season it (like the instructions said), or if you only need to do that when the iron is brand new. Just to make very sure I was doing this right, I plugged it in and gave it a hot, well-greased quarter of an hour. When I opened the iron, it put out a huge puff of smoke. I had to hastily take down the kitchen's smoke detector.

As directed, I cooked these for three seconds only. I then opened the iron to find that the pizzelles were fully cooked and slightly golden, just as promised. They also looked quite bad.

I'm not saying these pizzelles were hopeless, but they definitely looked like it.

I managed to remove the pizzelles off intact and lay them flat before they cooled off. I thought that perhaps the next ones would come out more easily, but I had to gently pry out every pizzelle out of this iron. No matter how well I greased it, I always opened it to find something like this.

I really this iron to work because the design looked unexpectedly pretty when the waffles came out. But no matter how hard I squeezed the handles, the pizzelles just weren't thin enough to be nice and crisp. (Or are they supposed to look like this, and mine have been wrong all this time? I still don't know.) 

Anyway, if I managed to grip the handles tight enough to make these crispy on one side, the batter pushed up the iron on the back. At best, they were nearly burnt at one end and Eggos on the other.

And so, I unplugged the iron and cooked the rest of the pizzelles on the stove. They came out so delicate that light passed right through them. And when they cooled off, they tasted like I had put cake batter on a waffle iron. They were so good that I quickly mixed another batch of batter before the iron could cool off. 

I didn't want my new, non-returnable electric iron to be a waste of money and counterspace. After giving it some thought, I decided that various parts of the iron must have loosened over the years. And so, I got out a screwdriver and tightened every single wobbly bit I could find. The iron felt a lot better after making all of its parts snug again, but it didn't make a bit of difference. Eventually I realized: this really isn't made for pizzelles.

If we look at the other pizzelle irons, they all have really sturdy hinges.

However, this thing only has stamped sheet metal joining it at the back.

Moving to the front, the handles are also attached with sheet metal. When I squeezed them as firmly as I could, I could I could actually see bending as the hot pizzelle batter expanded. 

And so, I had to reluctantly admit that this brief foray into modernity gave me nothing but an interesting recipe.

But even though this can't live up to its own pizzelle hype, I don't think it was a complete waste of money. For one thing, it does a perfect job of toasting the heels from a loaf of bread. You know how whenever you put bread heels in a toaster, they always curl up and blacken at the edges? Well, take a look at this!

Golden. Perfect. I'm still deciding if it's worth every penny.

And so, instead of reluctantly using the bread heels for sandwiches, they can become really good avocado toast!

I never even thought of putting avocado on toast until that one rich guy claimed that $19 avocado toast was keeping me from buying a house. I read that and thought "What an economical snack! Avocados are less than a dollar each!"

And when I was in the mood for baked potatoes but didn't want to heat up the oven or wait half an hour, this iron made crisp golden spud slices in about three minutes. By the time I had the dishwasher loaded, the countertop wiped, and the tea poured, they were ready.

Granted, they were very unevenly cooked on top. I can't slice potatoes with robotic precision, so the thicker ones got toasted and the others stayed pale. But if you flipped them over, they were all perfect.

 I'm not saying I needed a sandwich press. But I'm not in a rush to get rid of it either.