The Sunday Reset: Cold Desserts, Fresh Coffee and a Tidy Shower | Vol. 21

The Ninja CREAMi NC300UK exists for the person who has looked at a tub of supermarket ice cream and thought, “Yes, but what if this became a small domestic project?” We rather approve. Frozen dessert has somehow become a battlefield of ingredients, preferences and implausibly specific cravings, and this machine gives the whole affair a proper control panel.

It is not merely an ice cream maker in the traditional one-flavour, one-purpose sense. The NC300UK has seven programmes and is listed for ice cream, gelato, sorbet, smoothie bowls and milkshakes. Three tubs are included, which matters because nobody wants to make a single excellent frozen thing, then immediately wash the evidence away before beginning the next experiment.

There is, naturally, a catch. Ninja says bases must be frozen for at least 24 hours before processing, within a specified freezer-temperature range. This is not an emergency-pudding appliance. It rewards the sort of person who can make a base on Tuesday in anticipation of Thursday’s dessert, a level of foresight usually reserved for packed lunches and minor tax returns.

That planning requirement is precisely why we think the CREAMi is so appealing to the right household. It makes a clear case for taking charge of what ends up in a frozen dessert, while giving the kitchen gadget shelf a job more interesting than quietly collecting dust beside the bread maker.

Coffee beans arrive in bags designed for warehouses, branding departments and the brief period before somebody tries to fold the top over six times. A coffee canister is therefore a fairly niche answer to a surprisingly familiar domestic absurdity: wanting the worktop to look less like a tiny convenience shop after a delivery has landed.

The Fellow Atmos Vacuum Coffee Canister is the 0.7-litre clear-glass version, listed for both coffee and food storage. Its supplied dimensions are 10.7 cm in diameter and 12.7 cm high, so this is a defined little vessel rather than an enormous counter-top monument to caffeine. The listing also describes an airtight sealed design and a vacuum-canister format.

We think it earns a place as the tidier, more deliberate option alongside broader kitchen storage. There is no need to pretend a canister is essential equipment for making coffee; civilisation has managed with bags and clips for quite some time. But a clear, compact container with a coffee-specific brief is exactly the sort of small domestic upgrade that makes a kitchen routine appear more organised than it probably is.

The catch is pleasingly unglamorous: 0.7 litres is 0.7 litres. The supplied listing says it holds up to 11 oz of coffee beans, so people buying beans in ambitious quantities need to do the cupboard arithmetic before deciding that one elegant jar will solve the entire operation.

Laptop stands tend to arrive in two flavours: a hulking aluminium gantry that makes a desk look like air-traffic control, or a flimsy little prop whose chief achievement is falling into a drawer. The MOFT Invisible Laptop Stand takes a more restrained route. It is a non-adhesive, foldable and portable stand listed for 15-inch-and-larger laptops, with two adjustable viewing angles.

That makes it an appealing bit of desk housekeeping for anyone whose work area already contains a charger, notebook, water bottle, three cables of mysterious origin and the sandwich that was meant to be lunch at a sensible hour. We think a stand that can fold away earns its keep precisely because it does not demand permanent residency.

The compatibility line matters, though. This is not a universal solution in the breezy, buy-now-and-sort-it-later sense. MOFT lists it for laptops from 15 inches upwards and tablets from 13 inches upwards. Owners of smaller laptops should not attempt to negotiate with the product page using optimism.

As a complementary desk accessory, it makes a convincing case: two viewing angles, no adhesive, and a format designed to travel or vanish between tasks. It will not satisfy someone seeking a sprawling range of positions, but for a cleaner, less encumbered laptop setup, our verdict is that it has the right degree of unnecessary cleverness.

Bathrooms have a peculiar talent for making ordinary toiletries look like evidence from a minor disaster. A shampoo bottle on the floor, body wash balanced on the tap, someone’s exfoliating apparatus skulking in a corner: apparently this is how civilisation ends, one slippery pump top at a time.

The simplehuman Medium Tension Shower Caddy, UK model BT1109DC, addresses the mess without requiring a drill, a tile repair kit or the sort of confidence normally reserved for people who own a spirit level. It uses a reinforced aluminium tension pole with a high-compression spring and grippy rubber feet to sit between floor and ceiling.

We think that makes it a useful addition to a bathroom-storage shortlist, particularly where the existing shower has enough bottle clutter but not enough appetite for permanent alterations. The shelves are adjustable, so the storage can be arranged around the products actually in residence rather than an imaginary household that owns only one tasteful bar of soap.

There is a very adult caveat: this is not a magical extend-anywhere pole. The BT1109DC fits spaces from 1.5 m to 2.4 m, and its approximately 32 cm by 22 cm footprint asks for a real corner, not the optimistic sliver beside a shower screen. Get the space right, though, and the result is a far less chaotic place to begin a rushed morning.

The utensil rest is one of those sensible kitchen objects that tends to arrive only after somebody has wiped a streak of curry from the worktop with a tea towel that was already questionable. OTOTO Red The Crab addresses that minor domestic tragedy in bright red silicone, with claws and the sort of determined expression usually reserved for a parking warden.

Its central job is straightforward: provide a non-slip perch for spoons, tongs, ladles and other implements between stirs. Yet Red also has a rotating body designed for different pot sizes and orientations, and OTOTO says it can sit on a lid to release steam. A crab doing lid management is absurd; a lid rattling about while dinner boils over is, regrettably, more absurd.

We think this is the entertaining curveball for a kitchen that has already accepted the practical basics but still has room for one object that earns its nonsense. It is made from 100% food-grade, BPA-free silicone and is dishwasher safe, so the joke does not demand a cleaning ritual afterwards.

The limitation is equally clear: Red The Crab is a small, specialised answer to a small, specialised nuisance. Nobody needs a character-led utensil rest to make supper. But the person who keeps laying a spoon on the nearest plate, board or increasingly tragic patch of counter may find that this particular crab has been hired for a reason.