One Little Whip-er Snapper of a Blender (Kenwood Blender/Mill)

Name: TheChocolateLady

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Product:	Kenwood Blender/Mill
Date:	21/06/05 (1112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Grinds nuts and coffee beans, Separate blender

Disadvantages: Hard to clean the coffee mill part as its attached to the base, On/Off switch isn't great

Here's a darling little blender that I just had to tell you all about. Its a standing blender - you know, like the kind you use for making milkshakes and stuff like that. But it also has a coffee grinder as well.

Some time ago, when I was in my local Home Center (our local competition to Ace Hardware) when I saw that if I bought NIS 99 (about BPS 14.30) worth of products, I could add another NIS 99 and get this Kenwood Blender with Coffee Mill. Since the full sticker price for this was NIS 207 (just under BPS 30), I figured, why not? My old Moulinex blender, while not yet dead, had a broken bottom to the beaker and the coffee/nut grinder - which was never all that good - had gotten one of its blades bent badly out of shape on the last batch of hazelnuts I tried to grind. So I needed a new blender, and I really wanted one with a coffee or nut mill as well, so this one looked like it fit the bill. After a couple of minutes routing around the shop, I came up with a small basketful of items that totaled just over the required minimum for the special, grabbed the blender, paid up and went home ecstatic with my bargain-hunting savvy.

This is a very sweet looking item that has a gently rounded design to it. Much like the Kenwood basic blenders, the tops have a cute top handle that looks much like the end of a pomegranate. For the blender attachment, the white, soft plastic top fits snugly inside the beaker, and it has a removable center section so you can add ingredients while the machine is working, while minimizing any splashing. The blender attachment, goes onto the base which has a simple safety locking system that keeps the machine off unless the beaker is properly in place. This is very important because the coffee mill part of the machine is actually built into the base of this machine. This means that the blender - which has its blades built into the beaker - is actually placed onto the base, over the coffee mill blades. There is a separate, clear, hard plastic top for using the base as a coffee mill.

One of the things that is easily noticeable about the blender is that the blades are set very widely apart, vertically. This means that there are two blades that are very close to the bottom of the beaker, and another two blades that reach easily a whole two inches above this. For a beaker that holds just less than a liter, this means that almost a whole third of the bottom of the beaker will be included in the blending action. My old Moulinex (cleverly called a "Blender 1") held 1.5 liters but the blade seemed to only effect the bottom 10-15% of the beaker. I recall clearly that with the Moulinex I would end up with partially blended food, and have to mix it up manually and set it to work again to get the rest pureed. This little Kenwood was already a *visibly* better blender. I threw out my old Moulinex blender, but this sweetie has a full 250 watts of power (it also says it is 50-60 Hz, but I'm not sure what that means in blending power).

The coffee mill in the base has a normal sized well - about the same as most of the coffee mills you would purchase separately, and almost the same as my old Moulinex coffee mill attachment. The one problem here is that since it is built into the base of the machine, you have to clean it out using a damp cloth because you certainly can't put it an electrical appliance under running water, can you! This means that your fingers will be in danger of getting cut on the mill's blades. Not the best design feature I've ever seen. However, this is where the safety locking device comes in handy. As I mentioned before, unless the top of the mill is on properly, the machine won't go on. So, if you are a lazy git like me, and want to clean this out without unplugging it first, you have only to be careful of pushing your fingers onto the blade and you don't have to worry that the thing will accidentally start whirring and chop off your fingers. Other than this, all the other parts are dishwasher safe, so all the other parts are very easy to clean.

The other small drawback on this machine is the on/off mechanism. My old Moulinex had an ugly, grey, rectangular button that when you pressed on the bottom of it, it went on and when you pressed on the top, it went off. This Kenwood has a very attractive white oval button that you press on to start the machine, but when you take your finger off the button, the machine stops. Now this isn't the worst thing in the world, having to hold a button down the whole time you're blending or grinding something, but its not the most convenient thing either. I mean, if it doesn't stay on without you holding the button down, why did they bother with the little hole in the top of the cover? I can hardly see myself holding a button down with one hand while pouring something into the top of the beaker with the other. I guess I'll just have to learn to put everything in at once with this machine - which is what I usually do with a blender anyway!

But with something as simple as this to use, there was practically no need for a user's manual. What I got was basic safety instructions, a list of the parts and what they were for and how to put it together. About average for a manual, I'd say.

Of course, I couldn't write this review without giving it a try, right. So upon getting it home, first things first, I decided I had to bake a cake with both ground hazelnuts and ground cooking chocolate - my ultimate test. You should know that the coffee mill does NOT do a good job of grinding chocolate. However, the blender part, on the other hand, does an amazing job of grinding chocolate. You should also know that the coffee mill does only a fair job of grinding hazelnuts. However, the blender part does a perfect job of grinding nuts! Now I never was able to do that with my old Moulinex - not with chocolate and not with any nuts. This blender beaker is really marvelous. Furthermore, making a milkshake in this blender was surprisingly fast, with everything whipped up evenly, smoothly, quickly and with a wonderful froth to it. And the final test? Ice, on its own, no liquid, just for crushed ice. Oh, yes, this grinds up ice cubes truly beautifully and I may become addicted to making slush for my kids in the summers.

So, now I'm thinking "why did I need the coffee mill part of this machine?" Well, I guess I really didn't. But you know what? Now I can buy my coffee as beans again and not only make freshly brewed coffee, but make freshly brewed coffee from freshly ground coffee beans! A dream come true for a coffee lover like myself.

In conclusion, while this blender isn't totally perfect, it was a real deal and it performed wonderfully through all my tests. It looks very nice as well, so I can leave it on my kitchen counter. I hope that anyone looking for a simple, but powerful blender can find this model in their shops, since I can recommend it to anyone who wants just a small basic blender - and they'll get a lovely coffee mill thrown in at no extra cost. That's a winner in my book.

(Or at least it was, until one day - almost three years after using it regularly - it just stopped working. No matter, that happened just after I got my brand new Braun K3000 which can do all the blending and grinding anyway!)

Thanks for reading.

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Kenwood has a UK website at www.kenwood.co.uk/ but I haven't seen this particular model on that site.

The address for Kenwood UNITED KINGDOM is New Lane, Havant, Hampshire, PO9 2NH, England, Tel: +44 (0) 23 9247 6000, Fax: +44 (0) 23 9239 2400
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