A hand blender that chops and whips too - my first Morphy Richards Innovator review

So, you may or may not know that I was chosen earlier in the year to be a Morphy Richards Innovator. This means I get to try out Morphy Richards appliances and share my thoughts on them with you lucky people.

The first thing I've been sent to try is their Accents Hand Blender set in red. Here's the official Morphy Richards video showing you just what it can do.



I love hand blenders as they make soup making so much easier because you don't have to decant everything from pan to jug and back again. I used to have one long ago that did other things so I was intrigued to try this. It has a balloon whisk attachment to whip cream and a little chopping bowl that you can use like a little food processor. And the blending leg is heat resistant so you don't even have to wait for the soup to cool before blending it.

All the attachments detach easily and go in the dishwasher which is fantastic. Not that anything is too fiddly to clean. My one comment is I don't understand why they put small ridges on the inside of the chopping bowl because it makes it harder to scrape completely clean. Everything feels solid and well-made, so I have no concerns that it won't stand the test of time.

Making pesto was a breeze

The chopping bowl itself requires a bit of a knack to learn how to do the twist and lock mechanism to put it together as it feels counter-intuitive. However, once you get it, it's fine. The chopper itself is brilliant - I made pesto in it over the weekend and the little chopping blade is amazingly efficient. You have to make sure that you screw the motor bit in properly or it just makes a horrible noise but it's easily fixed. I love it because it is so much easier than getting out my food processor for doing smaller amounts. It would be great for anything like making breadcrumbs when you only want to do one or two slices, chopping a bag of nuts or making a curry paste.

Whipped cream in two minutes flat!

The whisk attachment is a bit different. I used it to try and beat some eggs but I made the mistake of trying to do it in a mixing bowl rather than the beaker provided. It took forever, but that's because there is only one beater, not two. In the interests of research, I bought some cream to try whipping it using the beaker. It did the job in less than 2 minutes, but I did have to hold onto the beaker tight to stop it moving around. I think adding a small  non-slip base to the bottom of the beaker (similar to the base on the chopping bowl) would make a big difference, as I wanted to adjust the speed without turning it off. Still, it was fast and effective.

The instructions state that the chopping bowl should be used at full speed and the whisk at low speeds. It's a shame they're not marked on the dial as it's easy to lose instructions and forget. It's obvious that you need to keep the whisk at low speed or you'll get spattered, but it's not really obvious that you can only chop at high speed.

On the whole, I love this little set. If you can't afford - or don't have space for - a food processor and a hand mixer, it's a great choice as you'll get 3 gadgets for the price of one. It may not do everything that a food processor does but it's very versatile. I think it could be improved by having a non-slip base for the beaker and making the inside of the chopping bowl smooth, but these are minor quibbles. For the price, which is around £50, I think it's great value for money.

By the way, if you  fancy buying anything, you can get 25% off if you enter the code FP1002 at www.morphyrichards.co.uk

(I was sent the hand blender set to try for the purposes of a review. All opinions are my own.)

Blogoversary Competition - Win Pampered Chef goodies!

This was meant to be part of my Happy Blogoversary post, but in the end, it was so long, I thought I'd keep it separate. I wanted to do a competition to celebrate my blogoversary and asked if anyone would like to donate me prizes. I got no response initially, but then one of my lovely Twitter friends, Laura, offered me some of her Pampered Chef products. Now, I'm a big fan of their products so I said yes before she could change her mind! Huge thanks to her for donating the prizes.

So, I have 4 prizes to give away to some of my lovely readers. The first prize is a Food Chopper, worth £29.50, which is a great aid to chopping up all sorts of things. It's good for getting children involved as they can chop food safely without getting their fingers sliced and it's fun to use (as well as being easy to use).

Then, along similar lines, I have 3 runner up prizes of My Safe Cutters, worth £4.25 each which are child friendly knives that can be used to cut up food - even things like apples and cheese - and they won't hurt themselves.

To enter the competition, all you have to do is leave me a comment below and tell me which is your favourite post on The Five Fs.

You can gain one extra optional entry, by tweeting the following:

Happy Blogoversary @kateab http://bit.ly/eDIdMP

Good luck!

Terms & Conditions

The competition is open to residents of the UK only.
There is no cash alternative offered.
To enter, please leave a comment below as specified in the post. Please ensure you leave some contact details via twitter or email or I will not be able to contact you if you win.
The winner will be drawn at random from all qualifying entries. The first winner will win the Food Chopper and the next three winners drawn will win My Safe Cutters.
The competition will close at 23:59 on Saturday 16th April 2011.
Prizewinners will be asked to provide a full UK postal address with postcode. I will endeavour to post the prize within 1 week.

If a prizewinner does not provide a full UK postal address within a week of being contacted, the prize will be re-drawn and a new winner will be contacted.
One comment entry per person only, with one extra entry per person available via Twitter. If you enter more than once, only the first entry will count.