Things to do with a wooden spoon

[cave76]

Serious Eats sent a list of things to do with a wooden spoon besides using it to stir.

They used my idea (only in a slightly different way) under "Ajar".

It showed how to keep the oven door open just a little to speed up the cooling down with a wooden spoon stuck in the door.

I had to use one with much more dexterity when my first stove (rented house) WAY back when and the oven temp guide was worse than useless.

This was also WAY before cakes mixes were invented. But I learned how to keep the temp correct (enough) by using different parts of the spoon and varying how the spoon was cocked/inserted. I rarely had a failure.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

11 1/2 Things You Can Do With a Wooden Spoon (Besides Stirring) | Serious Eats

 

[Katie H]

I've intuitively done many of those things with my wooden spoons. Another thing I use a wooden spoon for is to keep the tea bags out of my pitcher when I make tea for iced tea.

I simply bundle all the tags together at one end and tie a loose knot and slip the spoon handle through the knot and bridge the top of my tea pitcher with the spoon, suspending the tea bags into the pitcher. Then I pour the boiling water over the tea bags.

 

[FrankZ]

Other uses for a wooden spoon? Its a real head scratcher.

 

[creative]

Send it - tied with a ribbon - to someone you regard as a stirrer!

 

[taxlady]

I like to use them as a guide and stabilizer when I am cutting the slits/slices in Hasselback potatoes.

 

[cave76]

I like to use them as a guide and stabilizer when I am cutting the slits/slices in Hasselback potatoes.

Never thought of THAT use! Clever.

 

[taxlady]

Never thought of THAT use! Clever.

If you have a cutting board with a handle cut into it, balance the spoon there, like in my photo. Really makes it easy.

It wasn't my clever idea. I got the idea on a Danish cooking forum.

 

[Addie]

I have a utensil crock next to my stove that hold my wooden spoons and rubber spatulas. I have more wooden spoons than spatulas. Those large serving spoons you get in a set, can cut food when stirring. Wooden spoons do it gently. I even have a very long one that reaches the bottom of my tall soup pot. That one I got at a yard sale for $1.00. It has a nice comfortable handle on it made of soft rubber. I wish I could find more like it.

I do occasionally purchase those three in a pack at the grocery or dollar store. Every so often I will go through my cache and toss the old ones. My next purchase will be the short handle red handle spatula that they use on ATK. I have the long handle one.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

The list didn't mention that wooden spoons are good for remembering. Two of the spoons I have were my Mom's. Every time I use one of them I remember Mom and her good cooking. And, especially, remember the fun I had learning at her side. Best use for those spoons! Miss ya Mom...

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

My wooden spoons are used for making choux paste, and stirrring bread dough. I rarely use them for anything else. I like the hassleback potato guide idea. I think the propping the oven open idea has merit, and I may use the spoons to prop the dishwasher door open, to help the dishes dry faster.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[creative]

A wooden spoon is useful if you have burnt something in a pan (not too far gone). After a soak, I find it helps shift the worst excesses of the burn without scratching the pan. I know there are non stick sponges but the spoon enables more pressure to be placed on it. (Not that I burn pans that often you understand!)

 

[Bigjim68]

A wooden spoon is useful if you have burnt something in a pan (not too far gone). After a soak, I find it helps shift the worst excesses of the burn without scratching the pan. I know there are non stick sponges but the spoon enables more pressure to be placed on it. (Not that I burn pans that often you understand!)

Since most of my cooking is done in tin lined copper, wooden utensils are about the only acceptable scrapers.

I also use the handle end to stir the french press.

 

[taxlady]

Since most of my cooking is done in tin lined copper, wooden utensils are about the only acceptable scrapers.

I also use the handle end to stir the french press.

I used to do that, but now I use a chopstick.

 

[Bigjim68]

I used to do that, but now I use a chopstick.

I remember that from an earlier thread. But I don't care for Chinese coffee.

 

[taxlady]

I remember that from an earlier thread. But I don't care for Chinese coffee.

 

[chardc2]

The obvious one to me is to give it to the loosing team at the end of a competition!!

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

I notice no one mentioned child discipline, a very important use for my grandmother.

 

[RPCookin]

A wooden spoon is useful if you have burnt something in a pan (not too far gone). After a soak, I find it helps shift the worst excesses of the burn without scratching the pan. I know there are non stick sponges but the spoon enables more pressure to be placed on it. (Not that I burn pans that often you understand!)

In recipes, I see it almost all the time when they call for scraping the brown bits of fond off the bottom of the pan for sauces.

 

[GotGarlic]

It helps to have some water boiling in the pan while scraping. I use a wooden spatula much more often than a spoon because the flat edge makes better contact with the pan.

 

[RPCookin]

It helps to have some water boiling in the pan while scraping. I use a wooden spatula much more often than a spoon because the flat edge makes better contact with the pan.

Actually I usually use wine to deglaze the pan, or stock if I'm not using wine. Something that adds to the sauce.