We headed to Scotland for half term, a large group of is with plans to cook together. Last year's trip had seen a vital component of our main stove forgotten at home so we had to make do with a couple of micro stoves, balancing oversized billies on them precariously. This year I noticed that Alpkit now do a stove which looked perfect for the job. The Landar is a chunky beast that fits standard screw in gas canisters. It weighs 805g so is not a lightweight option, but that said, for its size it is relatively compact. It has three fold out legs which form a very stable tripod, each with a plastic foot pad. These legs fold neatly away into the main body of the stove and are held in place, either in or out, by spring loaded push-buttons. Once the legs are out the gas canister screws into the thread in the centre and hangs below the main burner. Mounted on the side of one of the legs is a piso lighter which has a spring loaded action. To light the stove you simply flip out the simmer control, turn it on, and click the piso clicker once. On top there are 6 fold out pan supports, 3 long and 3 short. They are cleverly arranged so that they work when either folded out or in meaning that you can arrange them to suit pots from pretty small to very large. The recommended smallest pot size is 16cm diameter, but we effectively used it with a coffee pot much smaller than that. The largest pots we used had a diameter of 30cm! As long as the feet are stable and level the stove never once showed any sign of wobbling. Interestingly the website does mention that it is not suitable for a 450g Coleman canister. Obviously we didn't read this before heading into the wilds and didn't have internet access whilst there. Having only Coleman canisters we did get the stove working OK, but the large canisters need screwing in extra tight as the legs impede the last quarter of a turn. In use it was impressively fast, but also could be used to slowly simmer thanks to the sensitive controller. Retailing at £40 (currently reduced from £45) it is a beautiful stove to look at, and incredibly practical for cooking for large groups, and good value to boot.

You can buy the stove directly from Alpkit.