If you're one to melt chocolate in a double boiler, take a look at this Double-Wall Pot ($16, Fresh Finds). The stainless steel 1-quart pot has an outer insulating “water jacket;” pour water in before heating something delicate, like chocolate or custard.
Up side: you don't have to mess with two pots or an extra bowl. Down side - we can't think of one yet, other than the expense of buying a new pot. Brilliant idea or a one-use tool - what do you think?
This is, as Alton Brown would call it, a unitasker. I don't see how it's so difficult to stick a metal bowl on top of a pot of simmering water to make a double boiler.
view raspberry eggplant's profile
Sounds great for simply melting, but for tempering chocolate, it's not ideal. The problem is that once you take it off the heat source, the water around the pot is still hot so you can't make the temperature go down very well without pouring out the hot water and adding cooler water to the pot. With a double boiler, you can just take the top pot off the bottom pot to cool it down.
view KatieG's profile
I like it but, I would rather just use the method that raspberry says than purchase a pot just for that.
view alyssazor's profile
I already have the tools I need to create a double boiler - and those tools can be used for multiple other purposes, too - so why waste cabinet space on this uni-tasker?
Is it possible to remove the top bowl from the pot or are they permanently attached? If they're attached, how do you know that you've removed all of the moisture from the "water jacket"? Couldn't mold grow in there?
view Nougat's profile
I can just see myself picking this up and trying to pour the chocolate out of the wrong side leading to water in my bowl of chocolate, of course leading to seized unusable chocolate.
view sally599's profile
Let's hope the user never spills anything into the water-section of the pot... I can't imagine that cleaning half-cooked custard out of that little spout would be an easy task!
view leenwebb's profile
First I was excited about this, but everybody is right, a plain old double boiler is best after all.
view Kate (NC)'s profile
the cleaning factor was the first thing that came to mind for me, but i also dislike that it's a unitasker.
view bokeh's profile
The point of the double boiler is that the bowl or top part of the pot is NOT touching the hot water. This is a totally pointless unitasker.
view angorian's profile
That spout looks like it would be very difficult to pour water into. And, yeah a bowl set over a pot of simmering water is much easier. This thing is silly.
view Zora 's profile
who doesn't have a bowl in the kitchen that they can use as a double boiler?
view Joan in SB's profile