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I was quite surprised and delighted on how well this cookware was made.
To note before I continue, the teflon fry pans included in this set are your average aluminum, light weight cooking utensils.
In retrospect, all of the teflon cookware we’ve used in the past many years, in time, even while using proper teflon abrasive safe utensils (=non-metal) and cleaning procedures, will finally wear off after continued use.
The Teflon pans in this set are no better nor worse then other low-medium quality teflon cookware. I kind of felt the Teflon pans were “extras” (freebies in a sense) to the well built and solid SS cookware they came with.
The rest of the Paula Deen cook-set is built extremely well and solid.
Handles are riveted security into the body of each cook-piece. I tried using significant force to try to flex handles on this cookware and they did not budge. The thickness of metal used of all the pieces is as good as other brands costing much more.
The handles are comfortable to hold and stay cool, an impotent consideration when holding a pot that’s fairly heavy in contents. Each handle has an eyelet at end in case you hang you pots on a hook.
The glass covers are well made, fit tight, and the glass can offer some viewing of contents instead of having to lift the cover to check if you must reduce heat or if something is bubbling or spattering a bit too much.
I’m not sure how the glass would hold up if the cover were dropped onto a hard floor (versus a solid cover), and that might be the only issue if you sometimes get a case of “butter-fingers”.
I liked the large knobs on each cover. They are easy to hold, even with wet hands and are spaced well away from the hot glass top surface so there’s little to no chance of getting a finger or knuckle burn like on some smaller knobs spaced closer to the cover as used on some other brands of cookware I’ve seen.
As other reviewers have pointed out, I’m not sure either if the handles would be oven safe at 350 deg and I did not want to find out they were not.
The “rounded” profile and shape of this cook-set is very pleasing visually. I’ve seen this shape in stores abroad on a few trips and to me, the rounded shape is really unique of sorts since a lot of cookware always uses a straight side profile and this curved side profile on the Paula Deen set seems somewhat “Euro” in design. I like it!
We currently have a glass top electric range that has an excellent uniformity of heat across the burner area (but, a new gas range is coming sometime in 2013 so that’s another review in itself and I will update this review at that time!).
I noted that all of the cookware in this set heated up very fast (meaning very good and efficient heat conductance) and appeared to cook very uniformly across the entire bottom area. One major advantage here is that good heat conductance means normally using a slightly lower heat setting then was used for your old cookware and this was the case here for us. (Replaced 22+ year-old Revereware).
Cleanup was easy on all of this cookware. Let it cool down well and then soak it using hot water for a few minutes, then proceed to use soap and gentle scrubbing with a non-abrasive sponge (or Teflon approved no-scratch pad). Even messier (frying) cleanup went well. Just allow some soaking time and everything will lift off the metal surface fine during cleaning. We use Olive oil a lot here as a “Pam” type cooking film in a lot of our cooking. This sure helps too by providing a non-stick “healthy” alternative to using butter or pam and it helps things cook faster too, not to mention adding great flavor in the process. (olive oil and a dash of salt tastes very similar to butter or margarine and is a -much- healthier to alternative use on a regular basis!). To note, Olive oil can gum up under high heat, but, considering you will not need that (high cook temps) with this cookware, olive oil will work quite well.
I have to say this cookware and the assortment in this package at the selling price of under $ 100 is a great buy.
I feel very confident that this cookware (aside from the “average” quality teflon fry pans included) will perform extremely well over a very long life of service and most all buyers will not be returning this set after purchase.
Highly recommended and you won’t be disappointed…..
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