Great British Baking Show Salad Tongs

The Great British Baking Show Salad Tongs are the MasterClass 28cm Food Tongs (Amazon UK Only). These are fairly standard food salad tongs. MasterClass is a bit vague on what they are made of stating that they are "metal" and nylon.

The nylon heads are great for non-stick pans and will not tear them up. Which is great! However, when I'm using tongs on a grill, I try to avoid nylon or silicone heads. In the event I rest them on the grill, because I'm distracted by how good that corn looks... metal tongs won't melt. However, for all my indoor cooking I prefer by a large margin nylon heads.

The body of these are labeled as "metal." Which to me feels odd - if they were stainless steel I assume they'd be labeled as so. All that said, they claim to be dishwasher safe, so I'm going to assume they are some sort of stain-resistant "metal." The handles have a brushed look and a nice smooth curved aesthetic. I really like the way they look and I can see why they landed in the tent (aside from being MasterClass - which seems to be most of the utensils and gadgets on the show now.)

These tongs - like most available have a locking ring which allows you to store them closed. For anyone who has had a pair open in a drawer and basically needed to buy a new house to get a functional drawer again, they know the value of this.

They claim that the mechanism (read - the hinge and spring), is durable and you can 'feel the quality.' Which does not go to great lengths to tell us anything of value about it. When ever you buy cheap tongs them spring inside is normally made of either a high carbon steel, or a spring steel. Both of these rust with reckless abandon, and eventually turn to nothing, or break inside the tongs. I've had a few pairs of cheap tongs do this, and I wish I'd taken pictures to show you why you want to spend an extra couple dollars on a good pair of tongs if they're ever going to get wet... like in a salad, the sink, or the dishwasher.

I assume MasterClass has paid to be put in the tent at this point in time, as they advertise everything "As seen on TV" on their site now. Most of the gear in the tent is MasterClass. Me personally - I'm kind of bored with MasterClass, but my boredom does not take away from their brand. I have their background in probably 10 to 15 posts at this point and I'm not going to get into it again. They're English.

The tongs look to be high quality, and are dishwasher safe. As long as the spring in the hinge is high quality, and does not rust out, I really like the way these look. They have a good aesthetic and seem quite utilitarian. As any good utensil should be!

Well if you're in the UK again you're in luck! And I hope you've visited that big old clock! MasterClass is readily available at a ton of stockists, online at MasterClass's website, and through Amazon UK.

If you're in the US you're not in such great luck. Though MasterClass is selling most of their products in the US now I'm having difficulty finding the MasterClass tongs. You can have them shipped to the US from Amazon UK, but shipping is going to run you roughly $15, more than the tongs.

So what to do? Well first, learn from my mistakes. Don't order the uber cheap set off of Amazon from that company you've never heard of. The spring is going to rust out on you and make a horrid mess. Additionally all the rivets are going to break which just leaves you with two individual... tong...s? That is, if the locking ring does not decide to break first. I've gone through 6 of them to learn my lessons - they take about 6 months to go to tong heaven.

So now that my hard headed-ness is done with (regarding tongs) let me point you in a great direction!

OXO makes a great pair of tongs - UK! They come in both 9 and 12 inches with the silicone heads. I love these things. I've had these for over a year now and they've yet to show any signs of degradation despite myriad rides through the dishwasher. If you need some for grilling, OXO also has a 12-Inch Stainless-Steel Locking Tongs option. These are going to run you more than the cheap set of 78-or-however-many ridiculously-horrible-tongs-from-china, but they're going to last you much longer.