Common in a good deal of households and almost all professional kitchens, blenders, food processors and stick blenders share common characteristics, yet are different in a lot of subtle ways. Without these simple, yet feature-packed, appliances, many of today’s simple tasks such as mixing, blending and pureeing would be much more time consuming or simply not possible at all. Selecting the right appliance is a matter of determining what recipes and features you will need the appliance for, researching the features of each model, and identifying the most reputable brands of blenders and food processors.
Blenders are not only ideal for mixing non-alcoholic beverages, soups and sauces, they are widely used in bars and clubs for many different varieties of cocktails. This versatility makes them one of the most useful types of appliances available.
Health conscious consumers agree, blenders are a vital part of their kitchen armoury. Not only do they retain many of the vitamins and nutrients that are often lost when cooking, but their ability to easily mix ingredients ensures that all sorts of health shakes can be whipped up in next to no time. Many of today’s largest producers even go to considerable lengths to illustrate these positive health benefits.
While there are many different brands of blenders available in today’s appliances market, a few producers stand heads and shoulders above the rest. These include KitchenAid and Cuisinart, both of whom are well known for their exceptional standards.
Bamix and Cuisinart make extremely high quality stick blenders. Swiss-made Bamix is a higher-end product; the company has been focusing on stick blenders exclusively since 1955.
Food processors have been used in the food industry since the 1960s and in the early 70s the food processor was available for home use, courtesy of French produced and then Cuisinart in the USA. The key difference between blenders and food processors is that food processors use replaceable blades and disks instead of a fixed blade and they do not need liquids to operate efficiently. Their bowls are wider and shorter, too, which works better with solid or semi solid foods.
