An Sincere Assessment of the Zassenhaus Bread Slicer the Web Loves

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 difficult 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 a couple of months of baking, I lastly began making stunning loaves, however one drawback lingered: slicing them.

My most memorable kitchen damage 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 worth. As such, I’ve turn 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 truly been round for greater than 100 years. Zassenhaus is a well-liked producer of kitchen merchandise and different residence items in Germany, and in keeping with the corporate, its bread slicers have been in style 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 Eighties as increasingly folks 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.

Zassenhaus Bread Slicer

Costs taken at time of publishing.

For greater than 100 years, this handbook bread slicer has been adorning counter tops with its good-looking beauty and sensible design, making it good for residence baking fanatics.

I used to be a bit of apprehensive after I pulled the machine out of its field — the blade remains to be massive, and appears like one thing that you simply’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 maintain it anchored on the counter, and its hand-crank slicing mechanism retains your fingers effectively out of the best way of its blade. As soon as I received the slicer firmly suctioned to my countertop, I plopped a freshly baked loaf onto the slicer and was amazed at how simply it glided via the machine. About two minutes later, I had a completely sliced loaf that appeared like one thing you’d purchase from a flowery bakery — besides, on this case, the flowery 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 if you happen to’re severe about baking your individual 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 most likely damaged even by now. It additionally looks like a type of home equipment that you might go all the way down to your youngsters — after practically a 12 months 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 fully potential 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, nevertheless 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. For those who solely have counter area, that isn’t essentially an issue, both — fortunately, this slicer appears to be like good sufficient to hang around on the counter alongside your KitchenAid mixer and fancy knife block. To not be a complete cornball, nevertheless it actually does give new that means to the expression “the most effective factor since sliced bread.”

The Zassenhaus bread slicer is on the market at Zassenhaus and Amazon.