A few years in the past, I lastly succumbed to the sourdough craze. I’d made loads of no-knead loaves with business yeast in my life earlier than, however one thing compelled me to make my life extra sophisticated by devoting hours tending to a jar stuffed with flour-water goop that I’ve named Doughrinda Medley after the well-known Actual Housewife. After just a few months of baking, I lastly began making lovely loaves, however one drawback lingered: slicing them.
My most memorable kitchen harm was by the hands of a too-dull bread knife and a sourdough loaf, and I’ve been skittish about slicing bread since. I’ll spare you the gory particulars, however suffice it to say that the loaf’s thick pores and skin was an excessive amount of for my crappy knife, and the tops of my pointer and center fingers paid the value. As such, I’ve develop into nervous round bread knives, which has resulted in uneven, wobbly slices that weren’t nice for making sandwiches or toasting. Then, I began seeing movies of the Zassenhaus bread slicing machine throughout my TikTok For You web page.
A favourite of many a web-based sourdough girlie, the Zassenhaus bread slicer has really been round for greater than 100 years. Zassenhaus is a well-liked producer of kitchen merchandise and different residence items in Germany, and in line with the corporate, its bread slicers have been fashionable in houses since as early as 1904. Bread slicing machines have been widespread in Europe for many years, however they finally went out of manufacturing within the Nineteen Eighties as increasingly more individuals began shopping for bread as an alternative of baking it themselves. Plus, these machines have been additionally fairly harmful, involving massive, guillotine-style blades that would simply take out a fingertip if the person wasn’t cautious.
I used to be a bit apprehensive after I pulled the machine out of its field — the blade remains to be massive, and appears like one thing that you just’d see on a chainsaw, not a kitchen equipment — however its sturdy construct was reassuring. To make it safer, the Zassenhaus slicer additionally has sturdy suction cups that preserve it anchored on the counter, and its hand-crank chopping mechanism retains your fingers properly out of the way in which of its blade. As soon as I obtained the slicer firmly suctioned to my countertop, I plopped a freshly baked loaf onto the slicer and was amazed at how simply it glided by way of the machine. About two minutes later, I had a totally sliced loaf that regarded like one thing you’d purchase from a elaborate bakery — besides, on this case, the flamboyant bakery was my home.
Since this contraption feels surprisingly secure and intuitive to make use of, the one apprehension one want have in any respect is ponying up the $200 to purchase the slicer. That’s a steep value, particularly for a unitasker, however when you’re critical about baking your personal bread, it’s completely well worth the funding. I take into consideration all of the money I’ve saved on shopping for $12 loaves of bread on the farmer’s market and determine that I’ve in all probability damaged even by now. It additionally looks as if a type of home equipment that you would go right down to your youngsters — after practically a yr of heavy use, its blade hasn’t dulled in any respect, and if it ever does, there’s consolation in realizing that it may be sharpened if wanted.
It’s totally attainable that I may’ve given up on bread-baking altogether if not for the Zassenhaus machine. I had already bought a number of bread knives, together with a type of ridiculous bow knives, which didn’t make issues a lot simpler and took up an absurd quantity of room in my utensil drawer. The Zassenhaus slicer clearly takes up a ton of room, however it’s so helpful that it’s earned its very personal devoted place in a cupboard. I can merely pull it out, slice my loaf, and stick it again inside the cupboard as soon as it has served its objective. When you solely have counter house, that isn’t essentially an issue, both — fortunately, this slicer seems to be good sufficient to hang around on the counter alongside your KitchenAid mixer and fancy knife block. To not be a complete cornball, however it actually does give new that means to the expression “the very best factor since sliced bread.”
The Zassenhaus bread slicer is on the market at Zassenhaus and Amazon.
