As a home cook, you can never have too many tricks to make life easier in the kitchen. When you are pinched for time, you have a hack for that. When your ingredients are jamming up your recipe goals, you’ve got a hack for that.

When you’re missing a vital utensil, guess what? You can hack that too. One of the masters of hackery is here to share some unique cooking tricks for your collection. Household Hacker is always daring to try new things, and this time they’re dishing out six small fixes to help you save time.

Below, we share three of their handy tips. If you’re in the market for some culinary workarounds, take a look at these resourceful ideas.

1. DIY Dulce De Leche

   A decadent food whose name makes you sound fancier when you utter it, dulce de leche is a creamy caramel dessert that can be eaten alone or mixed in with other sweets. It’s not always readily available to be purchased at a store, so some people whip up their own tasty batches.
    
   Traditionally, the treat is made from scratch using sugar and milk and cooked for several hours on the stovetop. The popular version in this video is created with cans of sweetened condensed milk boiled on the stove.
    
   Remove the labels from the canned milk and set in boiling water. Lower the heat and simmer for 2 to 3 hours, topping off the evaporated water during the process. Remove from heat and let them cool before opening.

2. Hard Baked Eggs

   We know there are countless egg-boiling and egg-peeling pointers out there, but this one involves your oven. Achieve hard-boiled greatness by baking your eggs in the oven for 30 minutes. Simply place them on the oven rack and then crank it up to 325°F. No preheating involved!
    
   Once they’ve finished roasting, plop them into some ice water to cool down and follow Household Hacker’s other instructions on how to peel them. If you’re feeling extra innovative, you can try this method in a toaster oven too.

3. Brown Bananas

   Need dark bananas for a recipe? We know how it is when they still have touches of green on their tips. Blacken their skins to make them sweeter in just a few minutes by warming them in your oven. Preheat your oven to 300°F. Place your unpeeled bananas on a lined baking sheet and pop them in for about 20-30 minutes. Keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t get overcooked!
    
   After they’ve browned, slice them out of their peels and mash them up. If you don’t have access to an oven, this can also be done in a microwave. Heat for 30 seconds up to 2 minutes, depending on the desired softness.

Keep watching the video to hear more time-saving info for your cooking endeavors. And be sure to check out that enviable new Maytag range in the demos.

What do you think of these kitchen tricks? Are you interested in trying one of these? Do you have your own special cooking shortcuts?