An oven-like mitt?

The astronaunts in this story had 'oven-like mitts'?! Either their hands must have been weighted down by a four-range stove with oven door and warming bin (and maybe one of those little kitchen timers), or the mittens kept their hands nice and toasty warm -- wouldn't they have been 'toaster-like mitts' in that case? An alternative is that the reporter should have said "oven-mitt like mitts". Ideally, she would have avoided the contentious issue all together, but we shouldn't really expect someone who titles an article: "Astronauts step outside space station for lube job" to seriously consider the semantics of hand-wear.
Moreover, a mitt is pretty much the same as a mitten, but somehow muffs and muffins are not so grammatically interchangeable? Yes, we're back to the muff issue again. No, you should not think about it too hard, at least not out loud.