One machine to rule them all! These multi-taskers from Kenwood, Bosch and Magimix combine three appliancees ââ€â‚¬ food processor, cake mixer and blender ââ€â‚¬ into one mean countertop-saving appliance.
Text: Manfred Tham
The Kenwood Multipro Sense FPM810 is a food processor with a 1000-watt motor, an in-built weighing scale and an armoury of attachments to tackle any kitchen need. Attachments include a knife blade, slicing and grating discs, a julienne attachment, a dual whisk, a dough tool, a folding tool and a citrus juicer. It also comes with a heat-resistant glass blender and two shatterproof bowls – 3.5 litre and 1.7 litre.
Grate, slice and dice
The grater disc attachments, 2mm and 4mm wide each, saved me a ton of elbow grease. With the speed on high, it grated 1kg of raw potatoes within a minute, with less wastage than hand-grating the spuds.
Slicing was also no issue: the disc finely reduced a whole carrot into thin slivers although the very last 1cm of the root vegetable could not be pressed into the blade from the feed tube.
The julienne attachment was more a novelty, though. The cucumber that went through it came out in short strips – functional but not very pretty. In the process, it extracted lots of juice from the cucumber.
A mini bowl attachment reduces the cavernous capacity of the main bowl by half – good for mincing small amounts. The blades made quick work of mincing half an onion but anything less than half a fistful of garlic cloves rendered the processor impotent as the cloves simply bounce around whole.
However, not all the attachments could be assembled intuitively; I referred to the instruction manual quite a bit in the beginning.
Did it blend well?
The 1.6-litre glass blender was tasked to turn frozen strawberries and fresh bananas into a smoothie, but it didn’t do it too well. Even though the blender was only a-third full, it could not properly whizz up all the berries and left chunks even after I ran it on high speed for two minutes. Pulsing it reduced the chunkiness but the smoothie splattered up the sides of the jug, which meant a lot of scraping to get my drink out.
The dough, though?
The food processor boasts a baker’s suite with a dough tool, whisks and unexpectedly, a folding tool. The built-in weighing scale that takes up to 3kg of ingredients helped with its accuracy and ease of use – no more switching bowls just to weigh anything.
The dough tool was no-nonsense and effective, creating pizza dough in a minute with little wastage. You can easily modify the recipe by adding ingredients down the feed tube into the bowl as it kneads.
The twin whisk tool however, wasn’t nearly as effective. A good portion of the flour in my cake batter was left at the bottom of the bowl, just out of the whisks’ limited reach. A good chunk of soft butter also wasn’t broken up and incorporated. But it made a quick meringue successfully.
The folding tool was my favourite – it gave me a bowl of airy, fluffy cake batter, and didn’t overbeat the meringue.
Verdict It delivers on flexibility, speed and convenience. Every attachment is likely to be useful in some way in any kitchen, although it is on the noisy side.
Kenwood Multipro Sense FPM810 Food Processor and Blender, $599, from major electrical stores
Text: Mia Chenyze
The Bosch Maxximum Sensor Control Kitchen Machine is a stand mixer with attachments to turn it into a blender and a food processor – a machine to do ever ything, from mixing cake batter to chopping onions.
THE CAKE MIXER
Easy to add ingredients
A roomy spout on the mixing bowl made it easy to pour in ingredients like milk and chocolate chips.
No scraping down needed
Cake batter and pizza dough were both evenly mixed. I didn’t even have to scrape down the sides of the bowl, as with other cake mixers.
It’s splatter-proof
An effective splash-guard prevented ingredients from “jumping out” during the mixing process.
A handy auto-whip function
The Sensor Control function detects when cream or egg whites have been whipped into stiff peaks and automatically stops the machine. But it didn’t do well with just a small batch of egg whites (I used just two) , stopping prematurely. I continued beating the eggs using the manual function.
THE BLENDER
Great for smoothies
It effortlessly blended ice, bananas, strawberries and milk into thick slushies.
THE FOOD PROCESSOR
Hard to assemble
It was hard putting the attachments together. Not all the par ts of the machine were labelled in the instruction manual. The diagrams were tiny, and instructions were vague.
A narrow chute
I had to cut large potatoes and carrots lengthwise to fit the elliptical shape of the chute – this ruled out the round slices I prefer. I had to push hard to get the ingredients down too.
Good shredding options
I liked that there are both coarse and fine options. But the last bits – about 3cm – of lanky veggies like carrots fell atop the blade and were not shredded.
Great slicer and grater
I sliced cucumbers and potatoes, and grated hard cheese, and all were evenly cut and grated.
Lacks a mincing disc
There is no dedicated disc for chopping garlic and onions finely. The grater disc mutilated my onions – they emerged wet, flat and coarse.
Easy to clean
There are no hard-to-get-into crevices, so cleaning up was a breeze.
VERDICT
A great cake mixer and blender, although the food processor had some misses – might be worth the investment if you lack the space for three separate appliances.
Bosch Maxximum Sensor Control Kitchen Machine MUMXX40GGB, $1,699, available at major department and electrical stores.
Text: Mia Chenyze
This workhorse claims to care of all your food prep needs, from grating, slicing, shredding, chopping and blending to whisking egg whites, and mixing cake batter and dough.
WHAT I LIKED
• It’s fast. It sliced its way through starchy potatoes and watery cucumbers readily, and shredded both hard root vegetables and leafier greens like cabbage equally well. I couldn’t seem to put food in it fast enough!
• There are two chute sizes – a small one that’s just right for carrots, and a wider one for halved onions and potatoes – so I didn’t need to waste time with extra cutting.
• My smoothies took just a quarter of the time it usually takes in my regular blender. Thanks to the Blendermix attachment, I got a smooth mix without having to scrape down and stir in the sides. It crushed ice well too.
• It whipped egg whites to stiff peaks in less than half the time it takes with a handheld mixer, and even heavier bread doughs were ready in a jiffy.
• I loved that the whole assortment of blades could be neatly packed away in the small accessories box provided.
• Two recipes books come with it, one of which also contains the manual. I appreciated that the recipes told me exactly which bowl and attachments to use. Even the blades are clearly labelled.
WHAT COULD BE BETTER
• Just two small quibbles about the food-processing function: I couldn’t get onions chopped as finely as with my own food processor, and the potato slices made for slightly thicker chips than I’m used to.
• The whisk attachment didn’t mix meringue so well. I noticed some sugar sticking to the bottom of the windmill-looking whisk, and I struggled to scrape them in fully. In the end, I had to carefully scoop out the rest of the meringue from the sides of the bowl, avoiding the granular bits in the centre.
• Each bowl and attachment needs to be placed over the central protruding shaft and locked into place before you can start a task. I had no problems with processing food but I ran into diffi culties when it came to baking. When I placed ingredients in the mixing bowl before fixing it onto the machine, I found it tricky to fit the bowl and dough blade properly over the shaft, without some of the dry ingredients “jumping” up and spilling.
VERDICT
A reliable workhorse for most cooking and baking needs.