Gefu Ring and Tamper 10-piece Set

Ever wondered how restaurants make the beautiful stacked desserts or salads that make a plate look so spectacular? Or what the essential Cool Tool is to make our new favorite (easy) hors d’oeuvres: a goat cheese and smoked salmon torta? Or how to make any dish stacked an statuesque.. The answer is rings: round molds that are open at both ends so that you can put stuff in at the top (layering as you go), tamp them together so they don’t fall apart, and then remove the ring to reveal a beautiful presentation.

We tested a bunch of different rings to see what the differences were and what qualities and characteristics were important. We knew that we wanted not only to mold, but sometimes to cook food in the rings, so the material had to be oven safe. It also had to be smooth with no protrusions top or bottom, otherwise it would be difficult to unmold the food. So with those features in mind, our first choice of materials was stainless steel with no seams that might interfere with the perfect round shape. The next thing we wanted was a tamper, a flat pusher that compresses your layers so they don’t fall apart when you remove the ring. To be effective, the tamper should be sized to match the ring so that ingredients don’t squish up along the sides. And last, we wanted some variety, because if we wanted to start using rings, we wanted some choice of sizes: a small ring for a tower of crab in a soup to a large ring for the hors d’oeuvres torta we mentioned above. Our search led us inevitably to one set that met all our “ring” needs…