I've been trying to improve myself to be entirely comfortable cooking anything and having an armoury of kitchen equipment that can get any job done in the kitchen for me.

Having seen these used a lot on television and read how effective they are in some of my dessert cookbooks, I bought a Kitchen Blowtorch from Amazon. I bought one for £17.99 which seemed pretty good as this was £5 cheaper than the ones in Lakeland, and seemed to have a wealth of decent features with it.

Part of the attraction of this particular model was that it was recommended by Delia Smith, who knows quality and value better than most. I am glad I did as this has added a whole new dimension to my cooking especially saving me time grilling and allowing me to make my food much better presentationally.

You do need to find a supply of butane gas to fill and refill the blowtorch but this lasts a long time and if you check in your local yellow pages its easy enough to find a supplier of this, i've not needed to refill this since I bought it in January and the instructions suggest it should last close to 6 months anyway.

The instructions are fine they explain how to use it and give details on features such as the safety lock, how to allow it to free stand when not in use and the best processes for using this.

I have to say it looks pretty cool, silver with a black finish and red trigger button, there is a simple safety feature which ensures you can only use it when you need it and it has an adjustable flame which allows you to go to work on meat or delicate desserts easily enough.

Apparently the flame can go to a heat of 1300C which is pretty hot!

All in all, I use this for a few things, for heating the skins of peppers or tomatoes to a roasted standard, for browning meat allowing more juices to come out and then recover the meat and for browning tarts, desserts, frittatas and omelettes, it has made work in the kitchen much easier as my grill isn't reliable and it allows me to brown items as little or much as I want meaning they look so much better too.

It is already an invaluable item in our house and was definitely worth the money, my partner is enjoying finally being able to make decent home creme brulee's while i'm fully appreciating this as an option to fully brown meat and make it more presentable. I may update this when we first have to refill the butane to advise if this is a tricky operation, but it was fine initially and I can't see it being a real issue.

A decent product that is pretty timeless, just be very careful with it, keep it from kids reach and enjoy making your food even better than i'm sure it already is!