Any double boiler fans?

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cycluxe

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Last night I was making a cheese sauce in my double boiler (as per Peg Bracken) when it struck me that I'm the only person I know who even has such a device! And I think this is a shame, because they are genuinely useful.

I don't have a digital camera, but my DB is vintage Flint Ware. My favorite use for it is reheating/reconstituting leftover macaroni and cheese. Put it in the top of the DB with a little milk, give it an occasional stir, and it gets creamy again.

Anyone out there have and use a double boiler, vintage or otherwise?
 
I don't have a double boiler now, but recall my mother having one. It wasn't used a whole lot as far as I can remember. She was not particularly ambitious in the kitchen during the years I can remember.

When I started cooking, it seems to me I used the double boiler a few times here and there. I did a fair amount of baking, and I recall using it for making cake frosting and also at least once for lemon meringue pie filling.

I'm not sure that a double boiler is on my list of kitchen must-buys... At this point, I'm frankly doing very little cooking, and what I do isn't very ambitious. One day, perhaps, I'll have more enthusiasm... We'll see at that point--if it ever comes--if I need a double boiler.
 
I had forgotten all about reheating leftovers in a double boiler. Since the advent of the microwave oven this practice has become obsolete, but it's good to be remined that this is still a good way for reheating. I have used a double bolier in the past but not so much anymore, but I would always want to have one in my kitchen. For some things they are indispensable, like making a 7 minute frosting, zabaglione, anything that requires a gentle heat.
Eddie
 
I have a RevereWare DB.  I used it last Christmas to make a Christmas Pudding/Cake type of dessert.  It was wonderful and fun to use and eat.  I use it occasionally.  I just remembered, I have a 2nd one too but I'm not sure of the brand.  It's very 50s early 60s style. 

 

when I was in my first apartment in college in 1974, I used a couple of egg poachers to reheat food. 

[this post was last edited: 6/8/2016-20:12]
 
Have a few

One vintage heavy copper double boiler from France. Another modern set that came with first set of pots/pans purchased. Neither have been used much if at all.

The French copper one is a pain as used or not the thing must be polished or will tarnish.

Agree the microwave killed main use of double boilers in many households; to reheat foods. That and you can do the same by just placing a bowl or pot inside another container with hot water. Long as the water does not touch the bottom of other pan (it is the steam one wants) the same effect is reached.

When tempering chocolate, making frostings, etc... it is often easier to simply place the bowl one is working with in another container containing hot water.
 
Yup

One of those classic pyrex glass double boilers.

Use it for tricky frostings, egg sauces which must not boil, stuff like that.

The day my mom got a Panasonic inverter microwave, her's went in the cellar and has never come back up.

 
 
I still use my Revere Ware and Pyrex double-boilers often (Revere in Ogden, Pyrex in St-Lib).  I swear by them for the 'boiled' style of salad/coleslaw dressing, pie fillings, custards and 7-minute icing!   That 'custard' category includes the cooked base for home-made ice-cream... 
 
No Longer

As with Laundress, I too have a (beautiful) heavy Apilco porcelain insert that sits atop of a copper pot, but hasn't seen much use for many a year. Going forward it can't see any use, as I now have an induction cooktop. But it's so much easier to simply place a bowl (as opposed to the fitted porcelain pot) over a pot of water, and work the food in that bowl. It's infinitely-easier to melt chocolate and then transfer it to another bowl, pot, etc., then struggling to remove the contents from within the walls of a straight-sided pot and all the work that imposes.   Not to mention, one can coordinate any combination of bowl/pot for the job at hand.

 

But gotta admit the 'look', the tradition and the process do conjure-up memories of a great meal to come.
 
I use

the small "efficiency" bowl to my tilt-head KitchenAid mixer inside my 4 quart Farberware saucepan, when I'm not using my Radarange.

A four cup or eight cup Pyrex measure, and an OXO whisk......

Lawrence/Maytagbear.
 
It's interesting that many electric range user manuals from the 50s said that electric cooking made double boilers unnecessary. Unlike a gas flame which always burns at the same temperature, an electric element's temperature will vary with the input. I believe the instructions for surface cooking said to use medium or low in place of a double boiler.

Mom used ours for slow cooking oats on the gas stove. They work well for old-fashion grits, too.

I used to use them for 7 minute icing, but I made a Hollandaise sauce at a party without a double boiler the way Julia Child said to do it with just the surface unit on medium and moving the pan on and off while whisking the hell out of the mixture. It worked.
 
I don't have a double boiler, but when melting chocolate and making fudge I use a stainless steel bowl over a pan of boiling water.  So it's a double boiler per se.

 

I am cautious melting chocolate in the microwave.  If doing so use only short cycles and stir to avoid burning the chocolate as even the most governed microwave will have hot spots.

 

 

 

 
 
Usually I hear of putting a small pan inside a larger pan to form a double-boiler...  I bet I even have a couple of pans that I could do that with...

 

A true double-boiler, I may seen in actual use, and I think on an electric stove...

 

 

 

-- Dave
 
Double boiler

When I was growing up my mother used a double boiler mainly to make rice pudding and after leaving home I got one an used it for the same purpose & making custard which is was quite easy to burn cooked in a pan straight on a burner. But the one I had would not work on induction and I did not replace it - as long as I am patient the induction is fine for the custard and I do the rice pudding in the oven.

Like other here I am very wary of melting chocolate in the MW and use a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Same for hollandaise sauce - an occasional treat.
 
Think double boilers made sense back when ranges were like AGAs with few ways to control heat aside from moving pots about. If you wanted a more gentle/low heat than that process provided you place a buffer between; a pot or bowl of boiling water would provide the steam heat necessary.

Of course if you are a chef or cook in a large household it is likely someone else was doing the washing up, so another set of pots/pans probably doesn't worry. OTOH cannot see dragging out yet something else that needs to be washed (either by hand or machine), when just setting a mixing bowl in a pot of hot water does the trick.
 
Have one that's Revere Ware, but haven't used it in a long time. Sometimes use the insert alone to heat up a small amount, but it's packed up at this time.

The church has a large Vollrath double boiler, but we've never used it as such at our dinners. We use the large pot all the time, but the insert is only used to stir up slaw, salad, etc., or to hold ice.
 
Westinghouse ranges with the 5 heat switches used to show using Simmer for melting chocolate in the foil/paper wrapper directly on the element. Of course there was the warning that melted chocolate would hold its shape after it was soft so watch closely. Microwaves' manuals used to give the same instruction.
 

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