A bench scraper is easy to overlook. It’s a flat metal rectangle with a handle, which doesn’t sound like much until you count how many small, annoying jobs it takes off your hands.
That’s pretty much all the OXO Good Grips Multi-Purpose Scraper & Chopper is: a 6-inch stainless steel blade with a soft, non-slip grip along the top. The reason it deserves a spot in the drawer is the sheer number of small jobs it covers.
Dividing dough. Pressing straight down gives you a clean cut through bread or pizza dough without tearing it the way a knife dragged through it would. The blade has 1-inch markings stamped along the edge, so you can portion rolls or cut pastry into even strips without hunting for a ruler.
Shaping and moving dough. Sticky, wet dough is miserable to handle with your hands alone. Slide the scraper underneath, turn it, tuck it, and it comes off the counter in one piece.
Cleaning up. Scrape dried-on flour and bits of dough off the worktop in a couple of passes.
Moving chopped food. Chop an onion, then use the scraper to scoop the whole pile off the board and into the pan in one go, instead of running your knife blade across the board, which blunts the edge.
If you never bake, that last job is still reason enough to keep one by the chopping board. It’s also handy for cutting butter into flour for scones or pastry, and for portioning brownies or fudge in the tin.
It goes in the dishwasher, it doesn’t have anything that can break, and it’ll likely outlast most of the other gadgets in your kitchen. There are plenty of cheaper no-name scrapers, but the soft, grippy OXO handle is the main reason to pick this one, since you’re often leaning your weight on it.
