1. Field of the Invention
The invention is in the field of food storage, and especially deals with a mobile muffin container having doors for serving muffins without removal of a cover.
2. Description of Related Art
Muffins and cupcakes are used in a popular way to prepare and serve a cake at home and outside home. Being a personal size cake, muffins are ready to serve for immediate eating, saving the need to cut a large cake in equal pieces in order to serve them. In special, consuming muffins is a practical way to have a cake in a picnic, for a travel, etc. After baking, muffins are kept in a closed container or box, such as to prevent fast drying and preserve the freshness of that relatively humid cake.
Sometimes, the structure of the box or container makes it quite difficult to open the container for serving the muffins. Quite often, one would like to take out only one or two muffins and would like to do it in a reduced effort. Thus, it is an objective of the current invention to have a mobile container with a convenient way to take muffins out of the container.
It is disclosed according to some preferred embodiments of the current invention, a container for storing cakes and for serving the cakes. The container includes a bottom, a cover attachable to the bottom, and one or two doors connected to the cover. In a closed state, the door defines together with the bottom and with the cover a sealed compartment for storing the cakes, which are disposed in dishes. The dishes are compatible with the sealed compartment and have sites for receiving the cakes. In an opened state, most of the stored cakes are accessible for being taken out of the compartment. The cakes are ready to be served for eating.
Preferably, the dishes have a plurality of concavities of substantially uniform shape for receiving the cakes.
In one embodiment, the bottom is a baking dish having concavities for shaping cakes in a desired shape. Preferably, there are at least six such concavities.
In some embodiments, the cover includes a handle for carrying the container.
In some embodiments, the container is adapted for storing muffins without substantial drying for a duration of at least three days after baking, under room temperature in the range of 0-100° F. and room humidity in the range of 25-100%.
In some embodiments, the cover is lockable to the bottom, and the door is lockable to the cover.
In some embodiments, an horizontal cross-section of the container has a substantially oval boundary. Preferably, the door is pivotally connected to the cover.
In some embodiments, an horizontal cross-section of the container has a substantially circular boundary.
In some embodiments, the door is slidably connected to the cover.
It is disclosed according to some preferred embodiments of the current invention, a method for assembling and using a container for storing cakes and for serving them. The method includes providing the parts of a container, a bottom, a cover attachable to the bottom, and doors connectable to the cover. The method also includes disposing on the bottom dishes having several sites for receiving cakes, attaching the cover to the bottom, closing the doors such as to define with the bottom and with the cover a sealed compartment for storing the cakes, and opening a door such as to enable serving most of the stored cakes.
In some embodiments, the method further includes a step of locking the cover to the bottom, and locking the door to the cover.
In some embodiments, the method includes a step of sliding the door for opening.
The subject matter regarded as the invention is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification. The invention, however, both as to system organization and method of operation, together with features and advantages thereof, may best be understood by reference to the following detailed description when read with the accompanied drawings in which:
a is an isometric view of an oval muffin container having two doors and a handle in a closed state.
b shows the oval muffin container in an opened state.
c is a isometric bottom view of the door.
a is an isometric view of the cover of the oval muffin container.
b and
a is a wide side view of an open muffin container having a baking dish as a bottom.
b is a narrow side view of the open muffin container.
c is an exploding view of the oval muffin container showing a serving muffin dish resting on a baking muffin dish which is used as a container bottom.
a is an isometric view of a round muffin container having a sliding door in an opened state.
b is an isometric upper view of the round muffin container in a closed state.
c is an isometric bottom view of the round muffin container in a closed state.
a shows a bottom of the round muffin container.
b is an enlargement of an edge part of the bottom shown in
a is a rear upper isometric view of the sliding door of the round muffin container.
b is an upper view of a closed round muffin container.
c is a sectional view of the closed round muffin container along section A-A.
d is an enlarged sectional view showing the engagement of the container cover with the container bottom.
e is an enlarged sectional view showing the engagement of the sliding door with the container bottom.
The present invention will now be described in terms of specific example embodiments. It is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the example embodiments disclosed. It should also be understood that not every feature of the methods and systems handling the described container is necessary to implement the invention as claimed in any particular one of the appended claims. Various elements and features of devices are described to fully enable the invention. It should also be understood that throughout this disclosure, where a method is shown or described, the steps of the method may be performed in any order or simultaneously, unless it is clear from the context that one step depends on another being performed first.
Before explaining several embodiments of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and the arrangement of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments or of being practiced or carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. The systems, methods, and examples provided herein are illustrative only and not intended to be limiting.
In the description and claims of the present application, each of the verbs “comprise”, “include” and “have”, and conjugates thereof, are used to indicate that the object or objects of the verb are not necessarily a complete listing of members, components, elements or parts of the subject or subjects of the verb.
Muffins and cupcakes are used popularly for preparing and serving a cake at home and outside home. Being a personal size cake, muffins are ready to serve for immediate eating, saving the need to cut a large cake into small pieces in order to serve them. In special, muffins are used in a practical way to take a cake to a picnic, for a travel, a garden party, etc.
Also, in a container or box, the muffins are kept away of ants, insects, etc. In the following, two container embodiments according to the current invention are described on a way of example.
An oval container 200 is shown in
The horizontal cross-sections of container 200 have a substantially oval boundary. Door 230 is pivotally connected to cover 220 as shown in
A handle 280 is attached to cover 220 allowing a user to carry container 200 from one place to another, whereas two locking mechanism 285 lock cover 220 to bottom 210, such that cover 220 is kept connected to bottom 210 despite the displacement motion and the weight of the dishes and cupcakes. Preferably, the structure of the container, especially lockers 285 and handle 280, withstand a weight of at list 800 gr which includes dishes 210 and 260 and cupcakes 100. More preferably, the allowed weight is 1.5 kg or even 2.5 kg.
Door 230 has a locking part 297 to allow locking of door 230 to cover 220. To that aim, cover 220 has two lockers 310, shown in
Reference is now made to
The side view of
Reference is now made to
A round container 500 is described in
A rotating door 560 is disposed inside cover 520 and may be rotated between an opened position of
Reference is now made to
Referring now to
Reference is now made to
b is an upper view of round muffin container 500 in a fully closed position, whereas
Note that the locking mechanism of cover 520 and door 560 to bottom 510 provides sufficient attachment force between these parts, such that carrying container 500 by handle 530 does not cause loss of the carried muffins by departure of cover 520 from bottom 510. For that sake, the locking mechanism is designed to withstand a total weight of dishes 540 and 550, and muffins 100 carried thereof, of at least 1 kg, preferably of at least 1.5 kg, and most preferably of at least 2 kg.
The method disclosed below may be performed in any order or simultaneously, unless it is clear from the context that one step depends on another being performed first.
Reference is made to the flow chart of
Although the invention has been described in conjunction with specific embodiments thereof, it is evident that many alternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, it is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications and variations that fall within the spirit and broad scope of the appended claims. In particular, the present invention is not limited in any way by the examples described.