The Perfect Spatula

There's something I have always been curious about when watching cooking shows on TV or YouTube. Many bakers who show how to make cakes don't scrape their bowls very clean. They leave like 10% of their cake batter inside the mixing bowl, on the mixing spoon or on the mixing hook. I'm thinking, maybe it's because it's on TV, so there's no time to waste scraping the bowl really clean. Maybe at home, they're like me, spending a good few minutes getting every ounce of batter into the baking tin. Or am I the only one who's so stingy about cake batter?

I don't know about you, but I think ALL cake batter should be baked into a cake and not washed down the sink! Ok, it's impossible to get ALL, but almost. That's why, I believe, a good spatula is very important for a cake baker. You want 99% of your effort to turn into that cake and be eaten right? 

I recently went on a hunt for a good spatula after some feedback from my husband, aka hygiene master. I had a silicon scraper with a plastic handle which was really flexible. Although the handle was a little weak, it cleaned the mixing bowl really well. However he claimed that the current spatula I'm using is not good as cake batter could get inside the gap where the handle was inserted into the scraper. It makes cleaning the spatula difficult. 

Based on this requirement, we found 2 new spatulas that were completely encased in silicone, ie one piece from General Trader in Werribee Plaza. One was bigger and the other was smaller, which was meant for children. I put it to the scrape test one day and here's my verdict: 

In terms of strength, the bigger one was sturdy and flexible. However, it did not scrape the bowl clean. Even after a few minutes of continuous scraping, there were still cake batter smudging around. Not happy. I realised this was due to the 'blades' being too blunt/thick. I anticipated this when I noticed the blades were like 1mm thick, but thought I would still give it a try to see how it goes.

As for the smaller one, it scrapes really clean as the silicone 'blades' were made really sharp. However, it was a bit too soft and the handle was too short. Then again I wouldn't fault them since this spatula was meant for kids. It would be good for scraping a teaspoon of batter into small cupcake cases. But for scraping bowls, forget it, unless you don't want to sleep for the rest of the night and have nothing to do.

I bought spatula #3 from Spotlight after my initial disappointment with #1. The blades of #3 is sharper and it is also one whole piece. Somehow I ended up with a green spatula again as there wasn't much choice. Verdict: It scrapes much cleaner although I wish the handle could be a little longer. So folks, if you happen to be getting a new spatula, look out for a silicone one that is one piece, one that has thin and sharp sides and a strong long handle. Happy scraping n baking!