very stable and easy to use fondue pot
This is a review of CUSIMAX Electric Fondue Pot Set, 8 Colour Coded Stainless Steel Forks, Temperature ControlWe love fondue nights and often serve several types at the same meal. My husband didn’t think we needed a newfangled fondue pot (“don’t we have enough pots and pans already?”). But it look to me that this pot is easier to use than the type that uses sterno (I hate sterno) and it is more attractive than using an external burner plus pot. The little lip around the edge of the warming plate keeps the pot from shifting, which is really nice when you have rambunctious diners (yes, kids get very excited about fondue). And the shape of the base makes this very stable. The cord is pretty short, so we need to plug it into an extension cord if we want to sit at a table. What I like about that cord is that it has a magnetic link for safety — if somebody or something yanks the cord accidentally, the cord will disengage, leaving the pot still sitting upright.The pot has minimum and maximum markings. You need 4 cups of something to reach the minimum fill line; but you can only use a maximum of 6 cups of fondue. The maximum amount makes sense since you don’t want any risk of hot cheese or hot oil jumping out of the pot. But the minimum is another matter. When the extended family is with us for a meal, we definitely use that much or more fondue. But most of the time that minimum level is a bit problematic because we usually have only two people at a meal. We don’t usually eat 2 cups of cheese fondue each. We go below the minimum but we watch the contents carefully — and really, one always wants to monitor cooking carefully.First I tested the heating ability of the pot with water since reheating and reheating cheese fondue too many times can leave the fondue with a bad texture. And, in fact, we often serve a fondue broth, dipping in vegetables or seafood. I tested the heat using both the silver pot that came with the set and with another pot I already owned. Why? Well, if I serve cheese fondue and want to follow that with a chocolate fondue for dessert, I don’t want to wash the fondue pot in between — I would rather spend time with my guests. So I can use the fondue pot, let’s say for the main course, then switch to the other pot for dessert. The green pot that I used has a heavier bottom than does the silver fondue pot. I was impressed, though, that the silver pot has a slightly heavy bottom (the bottom is thicker than the sides are). The cold water boiled in both pots within 20 minutes (I didn’t record the exact minute), though leaving the water on the heat longer never brought it up to the official boiling temperature of 212 degrees. I left the heat on high and temperature was maintained. In some ways my test wasn’t fair since I started with cold water. When we serve fondue we always cook or preheat the food before we put it into the actual fondue serving containers. The broth and the oil are heated on the stove before being put over a serving warmer. This is important because once fondue forks with cold food (such as beef chunks) go into the fondue pot, the temperature of the contents lowers. This warmer has a variable temperature control that shows the temperature only by how many lights are showing and where the knob is positioned. There are no numbers on the gauge.The instruction manual has some recipes that we didn’t try because we already had much-beloved fondue recipes. I noticed that the recipes use a mix of metric and Imperial measurements. For example, a chocolate fondue recipe lists some ingredient amounts in the metric system but another ingredient in cups. Other recipes use Imperial measurements only for ingredients needed in small amounts (tablespoons and teaspoons). If you have a scale that measures in grams no problem. Otherwise converting weight (grams) to volume (cups) is problematic because ingredients vary in density (1 cup of marshmallows weighs less than one cup of flour), but there are online converters that focus on foods.After all that testing we used the fondue pot for Christmas Eve dinner. It was amazing. So much easier than our previous fondue setups. As family members—each with their own color-coded fork—kept dipping bread chunks into the cheese fondue, we monitored the fondue’s temperature and rotated the temperature gauge to make sure the cheese warm warm and bubbly but not too hot. We kept being so thrilled, too, that the pot is so stable on the base. And even if someone got crazy (no one did this year, phew), I knew the cord would easily disengage so the pot wouldn’t turn over. It felt very safe. Because the cheese didn’t get scorched, the pot was pretty easy to clean. I soaked it in soapy water and then did just a bit of scrubbing.In short, I like this fondue pot for cheese, broth, or chocolate fondue. Even the skeptic in the house was won over and volunteered how wonderful the new pot is.