Ribbed Soft Silicone Oven Mitt Set

A wet oven mitt is a worse oven mitt, and cloth is designed to get wet. Steam off a pot lid, a splash from a boiling pan, a damp patch you didn't notice: any of those turns the padding into a conductor, and heat goes straight through to skin. It is one of the more common ways a home cook gets burned reaching into an oven.

The KitchenAid Ribbed Soft Silicone Oven Mitt Set solves that by not absorbing anything. Water beads on the silicone exterior and runs off rather than soaking in, so the mitt cannot quietly become wet between the first dish and the last, and KitchenAid rates the material to withstand 500 degrees Fahrenheit, well past anything a domestic oven reaches. The trade-off with bare silicone is grip: a flat silicone surface slides on exactly the things you most want to hold. Here a ribbed stripe pattern runs across the palm and fingers, so a cast-iron handle or a glass lid has something to bite on.

The cuff is where the design has to compromise. Silicone against a wrist during a long reach into a hot oven is unpleasant, so the top of each mitt is lined with a cotton cuff backed in polyester, putting padding at the point where hand meets arm without thickening the part that does the gripping. The set holds two, on the sensible assumption that most oven pulls need both hands. Rinse and wipe them down; keep them out of the washing machine.