Prego Pizzelle Baker stands the test of time
Many years ago I expressed an interest in making pizzelles for our family Christmases. The elders in the family gladly passed the baton to me and I've been making them ever since using the VillaWare Prego Pizzelle Baker that my dad picked up for me. Prior to that I'd been using an ancient model that was once my grandmother's. And while it was nice to use for sentimental reasons, it was just not efficient or easy to use. Performance This model makes two pizzelles at a time so it's much more efficient that the old one that only made one at a time. Pizzelle dough is is typically not sticky (mine isn't anyway) so even though the plates are not non-stick, nothing sticks to them. It's easy to plop 2 balls of dough down, one on each mold, press the handle, and let them cook. It heats up fast and cooks quickly and evenly as well. I use a few different recipes depending on the occasion and all work well. For example, I use a thicker dough with lots of anise oil for our traditional Christmas pizzelle. For friends who aren't crazy anise-loving Sicilians like me, I make a thinner version that is vanilla or almond based and those work out well. I've even used my pizzelle baker to make mini ice cream bowls using the thicker dough with a vanilla base and baking them just briefly so they're not crisp when I remove them from the baker. I quickly round them into a tiny bowl and they make fresh, delicious ice cream "cone" type bowls. I use my pizzelle baker mainly at Christmas for a few hours at a time. It holds the temperature well so I'm able to remove 2 pizzelle and stick 2 more in to bake right away. There's no need to wait for it to come back up to temperature as it holds the temperature nicely. Ease of Cleaning It's easy to clean and the clean up is minimal due to the nature of the dough. Durability My VillaWare Prego Pizzelle Baker has been in use for almost 20 years now and it's still going strong.
Buggheart
Annapolis, MD