![]() ![]() They go from straightforward ice-cube-crushing machines to sleek kitchen appliances decked out with touchscreens and tons of extra features. As higher performance blenders have asserted themselves in home kitchens, the range of what you can get in a blender is huge. If so, finding the best blender-full-size, personal, maybe even portable-is crucial. Yes, it's worth it.Perhaps you aspire to fill your diet with nutrient-packed smoothies, homemade almond milk, or tropical cocktails. Is it worth it? We reckon that even if we only use it four or five times a week, that works out about £1 a go for year. On the KitchenAid site, it's £279, although you will find it cheaper in sales and promotions. And with a five year guarantee, we're expecting it to last and last. It's sturdy, well made, simple and really easy to clean so we can see it just becoming part of our daily routine. This is one of those pieces of kitchen equipment that you're going to use daily – we've been using it now for a couple of weeks and it's been used at least twice a day every day to make everything from soup and salsa to cocktails (mind you, we are writing during lockdown!). The fixed-blade doesn't cause problems with cleaning, however: we used the cleaning setting as soon as we'd finished blending, then either popped the jar in the dishwasher or finished it off by hand. It is reasonably difficult to scrape out all the contents from the bottom of the blender as the blade isn’t detachable – so if you are using the blender to make something with exact measurements (like dough), I would always recommend making slightly more than the recipe says. What don't we like about the KitchenAid K400 Artisan blender? There's a citrus press (1 litre), too, which is just for juice – see that in the picture above. You can also get extra accessories, such as 1.6 litre plastic jug, the personal jar (500ml) for individual smoothies and drinks you can take to work/the gym/the park with you, and a small batch jar (200ml) for puree dressings, baby food, or single servings of pesto, for example. There's a securely sealing lid with removable cap so you can easily add extra ingredients mid-programme, too. We tested it with the blender with the glass jug which has the capacity of 1.6 litres – more than big enough to make smoothies or soup for at least four people to share. ![]() We liked that: there was little to no effort on our part to get the end result we wanted. The ribbed jug is matched with an Intelli-speed motor, too, which senses the contents of the blender and maintains the optimal speed to break down all ingredients, then increases and fluctuates for precision and consistent texture. It wasn't phased by anything we threw at it: the asymmetric stainless steel blade is set at angles to draw ingredients in as such, it breaks down even the toughest ingredients so you can be sure it'll tackle hard veg and fruit easily, nuts, and fibrous roots such as ginger, without it being chopped down first – and you don't need to pre-crush ice, pre-chop leafy greens, soften ice cream or butter.Īs for the spatter we've sometimes suffered when trying out blenders, there's no problem with this one: the K400 blender has a soft-start feature which begins the motor at a slower speed to fold in ingredients and then quickly increases to avoid splatter. My personal favorite function is the icy drink setting as the blender gradually ramps up to full power to blend hard foods – ideal for cocktails, blended coffee drinks, frozen fruits and more.Īnother great function is smoothie – the blender operates at high speed to puree the ingredients to make yogurt or ice cream or the perfect healthy smoothie (or unhealthy but delicious milkshake).įinally, the clean function, which uses quick pulses of power for 45 seconds to clean the jar (fill it first with warm soapy water) of your blended creations with ease. It's a mess-free way to crush ice, with the blender running at its highest speed for 30 seconds. The ice crush function is particularly useful (we used it a lot when the weather was hot and to make cocktails during lockdown). Leave it on (or leave the room), and this function will automatically stop after three minutes. The pulse function allows you to manually control the precise duration and frequency of blending, and this function is recommended for making salsa and chopping nuts, fruits and vegetables. Simply choose your speed setting and press the 'start' button to begin blending (or to stop blending if you don't use the automatic timing function). What's the KitchenAid K400 Artisan blender like to use?Įasy! For starters, the blender has a simple one to five speed setting on its dial – and you can easily adjust it to make everything from soups, sauces and purees to doughs and frozen desserts. ![]()
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