Great British Baking Show Graters and Zesters

If you're making fresh ... well anything ... there is a good chance you're going to want a grater. These let you grate cheese, vegetables, and zest citrus with great ease. The bakers on The Great British Baking Show have access to three different graters, though we could consider one a citrus zester as well.

First, their zester, is a gadget that had me confounded for months. I literally stumbled across this zester while looking for another grater. So hopefully this will help someone out.

The Great British Baking Zester is the Cuisipro Small Shaver Grater (Amazon Link). This is the finest of their hand graters. It comes in "shaver", "fine", "coarse", and "starburst" patterns. The fine one is usually used on the show for zesting citrus. Zesting is basically shaving the outside of the citrus into small flakes, without grating the pith, which is great for flavoring food.

The Great British Baking Show grater is the Cuisipro 4 Sided Box Grater (Amazon Link). This is a stainless steel grater with a nice handle and 4 different grating sides. The box grater has different cutting surfaces per side. It has a fine, medium, and coarse patterns, the coarse one is more of a "shaver" in the way of shaved parmesan. The last slide is a slicer, which you could use for things such as potato au gratin and slicing apples for pies. Additionally it has a non-slip base, which I've never seen used in the show, they're living on the edge!

Lastly in a couple blog posts the bakers (David from season 10 and... someone else) have both stated that one of their favorite gadgets on the show was a Microplane graters (Amazon Link). Honestly, I've not seen these on the show, but if 2 of the bakers are saying they had them, I trust they did.

Well first off Cuisipro is a Canadian company - and I guess the British and the Canadians like each other... enough. And well theres that whole Canada's head of state is Queen Elizabeth II.

Cuisipro has been around for roughly 20 years and they're mission is to make quality cookware and kitchen gadgets. They've actually had quite a few interesting inventions that I'm sure some people find quite helpful. Silicon whisks (Amazon Link) help you from scratching non-stick pans and are dishwasher safe, so good on you Cuisipro!

Speaking of ease of washing both the graters are dishwasher safe, though the Cuisipro Small Shaver Graters (Amazon Link) say they are hand-wash preferred. Both the graters are fairly robust and incredibly well received.

That said why would the Microplane graters (Amazon Link) be floating around?

Though they may be made in the USA the first 'Microplane' grater was a Canadian housewife's husband's wood rasp. So they have a connection to Canada. But I don't think that's the real reason.

Simply put Microplane graters (Amazon Link) are sharp. Like really sharp. Like please be careful of your fingers and knuckles sharp!

They use a photo-etching process to make the sharpest graters and zesters in the world. On top of that they have a lifetime warranty and they claim to be top-rack dishwasher safe. Though I'm suspect of putting cutters into a dishwasher and instead clean mine by hand.

Additionally, they come with a safety cover (not dishwasher safe) and are made out of high quality materials. Sure you can buy a knock off on Amazon for a few bucks cheaper but why would you?

So if you're shopping for a grater which should you choose? Well if you're looking for the same ones I'm 100% positive they use on the show, go with the Cuisipro Small Shaver Grater (Amazon Link) and 4 Sided Box Grater (Amazon Link). You can't really go wrong. Or if you just need a zester, just pickup the zester.

But if you want what has become a defacto grater - most likely used by the bakers on The Great British Baking Show - the Microplane graters (Amazon Link) are what you should go for.

Or if you're in a crazy mood grab the hand graters from Microplane and the 4 Sided Box Grater from Cuisipro. Live on the edge! Go on - have some fun - and bake something awesome.

And one last little tip / trick. I'm sure you've seen people use graters a ton before - and I used to do this as well. Hold the grater so the cutting face is down and grate things onto your food or into a prepped pile. It's always a guessing game how much is there. OR give this a whirl. flip it over and have the grating face down, and as you grate you can see how much you've acquired. Easier for measuring, getting exactly where you want, and pretty dang convenient.