You want to make a cake, so you need a stand mixer, right? And a blender for smoothies, and a food processor for finely chopping veggies. But hang on … your food processor can also mix cakes, your blender can do the veggies, and mixers come with attachments for all sorts of extra functions. And what about if you want to juice, make nut butters, and crush ice? Just to confuse things further, there’s the much-hyped all-in-one kitchen machine, like the Thermomix, which apparently does everything but set the table.
So which machine do you actually need?
CHOICE food economist Fiona Mair explains the pros and cons of all the appliances in this category so you can make sure your kitchen’s equipped with the tools you’ll use the most.
Blenders
Why you need one
- Have a larger capacity for blending smoothies and soups.
- Traditional blenders can emulsify mayo, puree soup, make smoothies and blend frozen drinks and cocktails.
- Relatively cheap.
Why you don’t need one
- They don’t knead dough, mash potatoes, grind nuts, make nut butters, chop vegetables or finely chop breadcrumbs.
- May not give you silky smooth smoothies or blend fibrous, leafy vegetables very well.
- Can be noisy.
Must-have features
- Suitable for crushing ice.
- Feature a pulse function.
Have a secure lid that’s easy to remove.
Single-serve blenders
Why you need one
- Blends fruits and vegetables to a liquid and lets you drink on the go from the same bottle. Some water is usually added to aid with the blending.
- It’ll help you to get wholefoods into your diet in a drinkable form.
- Can increase your RDI of fruit and veg intake.
- Great way for kids to get fruit and veg into their diet.
- Suitable for busy people heading off to work and school kids who can whip up a healthy drink of blended fruits and vegetables every day without much supervision.
Why you don’t need one
- They’re not as powerful as super blenders.
- Typically operate on a pulse function.
- You can usually only process for a maximum time of one minute before you need to add a liquid to the fruit and vegetables to blend.
- The juice can warm slightly after processing, so you may need to add few ice cubes or frozen fruit when blending to avoid heating the smoothie.
- You dislike pulpy, frothy drinks.
- They can be noisy.
Must-have features
- Suitable for crushing ice.
- Removable blade shaft.
- Secure, leak-free lid.
Why you need one
- Makes labour-intensive tedious prep jobs quick and easy.
- Replaces the mandolin, the grinder, the mixer, the mortar and pestle and the box grater.
- Great for making pastry and doughs, grating, shredding, and slicing fruits and vegetables and grating hard cheese. Makes dips, curry pastes, batters and mayonnaise and finely chops bread crumbs.
- People who are looking to save time in the kitchen but who like to make everything from scratch.
- People who prepare a lot of fruits and vegetables – i.e. vegans and vegetarians.
Why you don’t need one
- It’s not suitable for blending soups, cocktails and smoothies unless it comes with a blender attachment.
- They can be bulky, which uses up valuable bench and cupboard space
Must-have features
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- Small and large bowl capacity.
- Storage for attachments.
- If you want to blend liquids look for a watertight seal and a liquid maximising disc that sits inside the bowl and stops liquids from rising up the bowl and leaking out of the lid.
Adjustable slicing disc, chip blade, two-size grating and shredding blade.
Stand mixers
Why you need one
- Kneads dough, mixes batter and whisks cream and egg whites.
- Some benchtop mixers accommodate other attachments as an optional extra such as a mincer, pasta machine, blender machine, citrus juicer, sausage machine, food processor and fruit press.
- They have large capacity bowls for making larger quantities.
- Suitable for people who like to just bake cakes, breads, biscuits, meringues, marshmallows, choux pastry.
Why you don’t need one
- Limited functionality if they can’t accommodate the optional extras like the ones mentioned above.
- Can be expensive.
- It can’t blend, chop or puree.
- May not be able to accommodate small quantities such as whisking two egg whites.
- If you have limited bench space and cupboard space.
Must-have features
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- Buy stand mixer that has Single beater attachments, which include a scraper beater, whisk and dough hook.
- Splash guard that lifts off with the motor head and makes scraping the bowl easier.
- Suction feet for stability on the bench when mixing heavy doughs.
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