Peanut Butter Mixer

Stirring natural peanut butter in the jar is often a messy affair, with the top layer of oil spilling over the edge as you attempt to combine it with the thick paste of peanut solids underneath. That’s where Grandpa Witmer’s Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Mixer ($9.95) comes in. A simple hand crank attached to a lid that screws onto the jar, it blends oil and solids but doesn’t splash the operator. The original Model 100 mixer fits securely onto standard 16-ounce jars (other models fit 12-ounce jars as well as mammoth industrial-size containers), thanks to its rubber gasket and plastic lid liner. We slipped the crank through a small hole in the center of the lid, screwed the lid onto our jar, and turned the crank. When we were finished stirring, the gasket automatically wiped the crank clean as we pulled it back out through the lid, leaving us with perfectly mixed, ready-to-eat peanut butter (which we stored in the fridge to prevent reseparation). The mixer’s simple parts are hand-washable only—a minor inconvenience for such a handy device.