The AGA was an iconic contraption born of the 1920s – and again, its aim was to make cooking less fiddly, fussy and time guzzling. The AGA’s inventor was Swedish physicist Dr Gustaf Dalén, who lost his sight in an accident: upon spending more time at home, he realised that his wife was fatigued and frazzled from using her unwieldy cooker. His solution was the AGA, a cast-iron oven that stayed hot continuously – it was a quick hit, arriving in Britain and beyond in the late Twenties and rising further in popularity throughout subsequent decades.

Faster, more economical and easier to wipe down, the electric oven was a kitchen game changer, and it was actually invented back in the 19th century. However, it wasn’t until the 1930s that they began to crop up in more and more British and American kitchens. In Britain in particular, the birth of a National Grid in the Twenties meant that, in this decade, more households were connected to power than ever before. Here, a class of schoolgirls gather round an electric oven in 1936.

Fast-forward to the Forties, and a post-Second World War technology boom was transforming kitchens at a more rapid pace than ever before. The first home refrigerator was introduced way back in the 1910s, but it was the preserve of the very wealthiest in society. In the following decades, though, companies like Whirlpool pioneered more efficient, economical designs and some 45% of Americans owned a refrigerator by the 1940s. They were mostly boxy and compact with little freezer compartments built in to boot.

It’s hard to imagine life without Tupperware now: those handy and ubiquitous storage tubs that fit neatly in fridges like Tetris blocks. Invented in 1946, they were a sleek solution for leftovers and packed lunches, and a godsend for working women still trying to uphold household duties. There were (and still are) even Tupperware parties (pictured here), where hosts would hawk the products to their friends and family.

The history of the dishwasher is longer than you might think. The first automatic dishwasher was invented right back in the 1890s by an affluent American woman named Josephine Garis Cochran, who wasn't satisfied with the speed at which her servants cleaned her dinnerware. Early dishwashers were usually top-loading, but the design we're familiar with today began to take shape from the Twenties, with manufacturers like German heavyweight Miele leading the way. The post-war boom saw to it that – by the Fifties – they were increasingly commonplace in kitchens in the US and across the pond. 

The mother of all time-saving devices, the microwave was actually invented by chance. Percy LeBaron Spencer, an engineer who worked with magnetrons, was conducting a test in the 1940s, when he realised that radiation had caused the chocolate bar in his pocket to melt. He soon set to work on an early version of the modern microwave and they were in commercial kitchens by the end of the decade. It wasn't until the 1960s that microwaves were built to sit neatly on domestic kitchen countertops but, after this, the rest was history.

The need for speed and ease continued right through the decade, and Teasmade was another company that thrived in the Sixties. Their automatic tea-making machine – which included a settable clock for hot beverages on demand – was a cult product in the 1960s and into the 1970s, with other companies jumping on the bandwagon too. 

Discover the most delicious dishes from every decade

Few kitchen gadgets scream “Seventies” more than the fondue set. Though fondue was eaten in prior decades (and the moreish concept of chocolate fondue was invented in the Sixties), its popularity really peaked through the 1970s. Fondue parties – where friends would gather to eat the indulgent Swiss meal of oozing hot cheese and dipping bread – were commonplace, and fondue sets with a communal hot pot and long forks shot off the shelves. 

According to the Washington Post, women were entering the workforce in vast numbers come the 1970s and the Crock-Pot, which took on its modern design and its time-tested name in 1971, was marketed directly to them and their families. The popularity of the handy slow cooker soared and sales had risen to $93 million by 1975. The virtues of the Crock-Pot are touted in this 1974 Reader's Digest advert.

While the SodaStream – a carbonating machine making plain old water into pop – was invented a few decades earlier, you'd be hard-pushed to find a kitchen without one by the Eighties. According to The Guardian, some 40% of Brits owned a SodaStream in this era. "Get busy with the fizzy" was the catchy line that rang out from TV ads through the decade.

Panasonic (then Matsushita Electric) invented the very first domestic bread maker in 1986 – you simply poured the dough mixture into the device and, hey presto, the comforting smell of freshly baked bread filled your kitchen in no time. The appliance's popularity skyrocketed in the Nineties and it's estimated that 25 million Americans owned a bread machine in this decade. 

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The steamer was another kitchen gadget that sated Britain and America's appetite for uber-healthy meals in the Noughties. Electric steamers weren't new to the shelves, but they flew off them in the 2000s, with celebs and articles waxing lyrical about the benefits of steaming rather than boiling veg: steaming is thought to retain more nutrients than other methods of cooking, and it remains popular today.

Sometimes referred to as boil-in-the-bag, the sous vide (pronounced sue-veed) cooks vacuum-sealed bags of food in temperature-controlled water. A gentle and precise way of enhancing flavours and ensuring tender meat, the method has been used by high-end restaurant chefs for decades, but domestic appliances became popular in the 2000s. Credit for popularising the method is generally given to famed chef Thomas Keller, whose 2008 book Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide showed Noughties cooks the ropes.

Healthy chips may sound too good to be true, but the air fryer has promised just that since its launch in 2010. Using just one teaspoon of oil, the device circulates super-hot air around food to give it a crispy texture similar to deep frying. Invented by Philips, the device received lots of praise at the prestigious 2010 IFA consumer electronics show.

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