What do you hate to clean?

[Kerry Beal]

Agree that the KeeSeal disposable bags are great.

I hate cleaning chocolate molds. I know, i know, you're not supposed to have to, but I'm messy. And frequently have bits of colored cocoa butter that doesn't quite release perfectly. So i end up spraying and polishing at the end of each big production weekend.

With a pressure sprayer and lots of hot water, the cleaning part isn't bad. It's the polishing each individual cavity that kills me.

←

I second this, for the same reasons.

Related, I hate cleaning the kitchen period after making chocolates. I'm not that clean so it's always everywhere - the counter, the drawers, the floor, the microwave, the window sill - everywhere.

←

I temper in the bowl, rarely on marble these days, and I put a couple of sheets of parchment on the counter where I'm working. So cleanup usually consists of washing some bowls, rinsing the molds in hot water and scrunching up a bunch of parchment into the garbage. I consistently forget to polish my molds, and generally they still come out nice and shiny.

I do recall the days when I used to temper on my marble slab - there was chocolate everywhere - and then I still had to pick up the marble and slide it back into it's home in the living room (it's about 2" thick). Don't miss that mess.

[Lior]

Glass - and blood.  I opened a cupboard one day and one of the shelves came down.  All sorts of corning ware, the sugar bowl, some glasses, corelle plates (they do break under the right circumstances).  And me standing in my bare feet trying to hold up the shelf.  I stood there bleeding from the cuts on the top of my feet, while hubby ran around vacuuming it up around me. 

Never fail to find those few last pieces of glass after you stop wearing your shoes in the kitchen again...

←

AWFUL!!!! I can just picture it!!! I also use a lot of parchment and a goal of mine is to do moulding and end up with a clean mould due to my fantasticskills!!

[chefpeon]

After more than a year of washing all my dishes by hand in a tiny sink with no sprayer hose and no automatic dishwasher........

I HATE CLEANING EVERYTHING!!!!

Half of my workday is spent dishwashing and cleaning which leaves me very little time to produce anything and probably makes me the highest paid dishwasher in the county.

[AmberM]

After more than a year of washing all my dishes by hand in a tiny sink with no sprayer hose and no automatic dishwasher........

I HATE CLEANING EVERYTHING!!!!

Half of my workday is spent dishwashing and cleaning which leaves me very little time to produce anything and probably makes me the highest paid dishwasher in the county.

←

Oh wow- I think I would cry without a sprayer. I can't believe your boss is paying you to spend that much time on dishes and not pastry. Does he know how much money he's losing?

[Just loafing]

I found a made-in-Italy flexible sprayer that fits on the tap ... cost about $10 from Lee Valley Tools and has lasted at least two years. It's not the same as a professional-kitchen one, but we wouldn't want to be without it.

[racheld]

The grits pot. any plate or bowl from which they were consumed or served, the spoon or paddle with which they were stirred, and I believe Lewis Grizzard was the one who said that in every garbage can in the South, there resides at least one fork with its tines permanently obscured by the concrete of dried grits.

Moses and the Hebrews could have left Egypt ten years earlier if they'd had grits to add to those bricks.

The problem is, you want to serve them piping hot, so you plop them into the serving bowl and stick the cooking pot under cold running water, but there's always an unsoaked bit on the rim, and the lid---ohhh, the lid, if any has adhered. You'd just as well get out the blasting caps.

PS I don't know what a badger is. I even googled it, saying "kitchen badger" to narrow the field. I found only many, many child-size play kitchens, and a You-Tube of a tall guy in a furry suit. I turned it off before he could start yiffing and scritching.

Details, please?

Edited May 28, 2008 by racheld (log)

[Domestic Goddess]

After more than a year of washing all my dishes by hand in a tiny sink with no sprayer hose and no automatic dishwasher........

I HATE CLEANING EVERYTHING!!!!

Half of my workday is spent dishwashing and cleaning which leaves me very little time to produce anything and probably makes me the highest paid dishwasher in the county.

←

Ditto. I hate cleaning the kitchen and especially washing dishes. I'd rather clean the toilet bowl and bathroom than do dishes. I also hate cleaning out our turbo broiler oven after broiling chickens and pork tenderloins in it.

[gap]

When I mix my own coloured cocoa butter - I hate cleaning whatever I mixed in. You end up getting the colour on your fingers so it gets on the side of the bowl. Then you stop and clean your fingers and then back to the bowl but your fingers get coloured again and so on and so on. My wife still pulls out the one particular ramican and glares at me

[chefpeon]

Oh wow- I think I would cry without a sprayer. I can't believe your boss is paying you to spend that much time on dishes and not pastry. Does he know how much money he's losing?

I do cry a little every day with no sprayer.....especially since we HAVE a sprayer (brand new), but Boss man just hasn't found the time to install it. We also have an automatic dishwasher. It's sitting out in the field next to the bakery, slowly deteriorating in the weather and becoming obscured by the grass. I've given up on the fact that that thing will ever be installed.

The stories I could tell. Boss will spend over a half hour calling purveyors to get the best price on butter and flour, but he doesn't mind paying me to do dishes half the day. It makes no sense.

I'm baking in the Twilight Zone. When I get to work every morning I see the ghost of Rod Serling standing in front of my dishwasher in the field.

[Lindacakes]

OK, I'm a sissy, but I hate cleaning the food processor. The blade. The bowl. The pusher thing. The thing that fits in the pusher thing. The food processor itself. Which is all shiny chrome and on public display so I polish it up.

I would rather wash all of your muffin pans, with a Q-tip, than wash my food processor. Watch me chop by hand, mamma!

[baroness]

OK, I'm a sissy, but I hate cleaning the food processor.  The blade.  The bowl.  The pusher thing.  The thing that fits in the pusher thing.  The food processor itself.  Which is all shiny chrome and on public display so I polish it up.

I would rather wash all of your muffin pans, with a Q-tip, than wash my food processor.  Watch me chop by hand, mamma!

←

Particularly the food processor blade -- once cut, twice shy!

[lesfen]

My roasting rack. Blah. It doesn't fit into the sink well and it's just a pain in the ass.

[stscam]

Muffin pans. Nothing is worse. Seriously.

We used to do at least 30 full-sheet pans every Wednesday ("muffin day," hooray). Pity the poor soul who got stuck with the wash-up. You had to scrub down into every single cavity. Let's see, twenty four cavities times 30 pans - 720 messy, mucky cavities to wash. We had to change water every few pans because it just got filthy with dough and batter.

But, thankfully, muffins fell out of fashion here a few years ago and we gave up doing them. It was a memorable day - that first Wednesday without muffins. Hooray.

Steve

[abooja]

Petite brioche pans. I've only got a dozen of them, but I dread cleaning them all the same. Much worse than muffin pans -- unless, of course, you've got 30 full sheet pans full.

[Patrick A.]

HaHa gfron1. Yup, i sure made a mess, but the jacket didn't stain. amazingly! The nice part was i had the younger members of class clean up my mess. They actual cleaned up all my messes in class when we cooked unknowingly

As for cleaning....there are a few things i hate to clean since being an intern. cough... cough

The worst thing to clean for me is.....hm.....would have to be carmel after it hardens.

[gfron1]

What a concept...an intern for interns! Every intern should have one

[shaloop]

Well, today I dropped a hot from the oven full hotel pan with two cheesecakes in a water bath completely upside down onto the floor. Hot water splashed onto my feet and half-cooked cheesecake batter (mixed with water) went everywhere including under the oven, proofer and range. I'm so glad I was finally able to contribute to this thread. The only good thing about the whole incident is that they were "extras" and weren't for an actual order due today or tomorrow.

[gfron1]

Thanks for contributing to the topic ... I hope you're okay

[pax]

Oh, and I hate cleaning buttercream out of a big Hobart whip.  PIA.

←

Usually I put an extra mixer bowl with hot water and soap under the mixer and let it run for a few minutes. It cleans itself and all I really have to do is rinse it off, which is nice.

ETA: Be careful, it sudses up more than you expect.

spinach

←

Mushrooms. I am complusive about food cleanliness and prep and I just hate that I can't scrub the little suckers clean.

Edited June 4, 2008 by pax (log)

[McDuff]

After more than a year of washing all my dishes by hand in a tiny sink with no sprayer hose and no automatic dishwasher........

I HATE CLEANING EVERYTHING!!!!

Half of my workday is spent dishwashing and cleaning which leaves me very little time to produce anything and probably makes me the highest paid dishwasher in the county.

←

When they renoed the store I work in they took out the nice three-bay sink in the production area and left us with a small utility sink, which as we all know, is not really for washing and sanitizing. But we have to wash stuff in there all the time or else walk into the produce prep room where the three bay sink is usually full of debris, and oh yeah, knives of all sizes and shapes. Recently I was asked if I thought a 30 or 40 qt mixer would be helpful. I have an 80 and a 20, and I said use Alice's Law of Compensatory Spending and with the money saved by not buying a new Hobart, put the bloody sink back in. We'll see. I could easily be the country's second highest paid dishwasher.

[reenicake]

My least favorite thing to clean is teeny petit four pans... that rust like crazy if you don't get them completely dry and clean.

After that it might be the whole kitchen after someone careless/really tall/ overenthusiastic makes spun sugar. (ah, the memories...)

And chocolate or caramel messes without hot water.

And pots where something (especially protein, pastry cream or chocolate sauce or caramel) has burned.

Ehem. sorry. I worked my way through school doing dishes in a workstudy program... only to become an intern and do more dishes!! a long time ago.

[austramerica]

I hate cleaning the whole kitchen after hubby decided to give me a time-out cooking...he is usually clinically clean on other parts of the house but when it comes to my kitchen, fuggedaboutit!

[reenicake]

I hate cleaning the whole kitchen after hubby decided to give me a time-out cooking...he is usually clinically clean on other parts of the house but when it comes to my kitchen, fuggedaboutit!

←

I know the feeling! My husband is used to a restaurant kitchen where there are dishwashers and stewards, so when he cooks at home the whole sink is filled with dirty pans, pots and bowls even before we eat. It's a fab meal of restaurant quality but so is the mess.

[onetoughcookie]

First off, this is a wonderfully cathartic thread for me. Misery is totally loving the company over here!

That said, I do hate the cleaning, but what's particularly irksome these days is that I've

switched to a more eco-friendly dishwashing liquid. In fact, I've switched around several times

because I think these products, while being kind to the earth, aren't so great at doing the job

they were produced to do. Now, it could be me, and I'm willing to accept that, but I don't think

this stuff cuts the mustard (or the buttercream, as the case really is). I've

been brainwashed my entire life with the formula "more suds=cleaner dishes".

Not as many soap suds with this stuff, and scrub as I might, I'm just not convinced that my

dishes, bowls, utensils, etc., are really as squeaky clean as I like. So, I reach for the white vinegar, and splash that into the sink. I'm not searching for Palmolive

"Madge the Manicurist" (I'm giving the age away with this reference) results, as I also wear

rubber gloves. I just want to use less detergent and clean my dishes.

Is that too much to ask?

[Tri2Cook]

I don't like to clean. Nothing specific. No single item above the others. I just don't particularly like it. Especially since the bulk of it comes at the end of busy 14 - 15 hour days. Another hour spent cleaning is the last thing I want. It has to be done and it is done but I don't have to like it.