My dear smoothie-fans and cooking buddies, I present to you my one and only blender: BRAUN Multiquick 5 Vario. It has been loyal to me since I bought the first one back in 2012, completely by chance as it was part of the exhibit at the shop and it was reduced for this very reason. It cost me as little as 20€ (granted, that version didn’t come with so many attachments, but it was still a very reliable stabmixer). That one sadly passed on two years ago, and it was replaced with what my dear G hoped would be an ultra silent blender that didn’t keep its promise. That one was returned anyway due to being defective, and in it’s place I got the new version that you can check out here
. It comes with the Standmixer accessory with two different blades, a smaller grinder accessory, a beaker, the whisking attachment and the immersion blender.
The Pros
It has 21 velocities and a Turbo button for extra speed, which I usually use for smoothies when blending frozen fruit. The fact that the blades on the immersion blender are very close to the bottom of the bell makes it very comfortable to use, as you don’t get big chunks stuck in between and you end up with a very smooth result with the only effort of holding the mixer with your hand and pressing the button. The immersion blender is the one I use for soups like this one.
The whisking attachment works like a treat, especially when beating egg whites to stiff peaks (or aquafaba if you’re into vegan alternatives!), it will definitely give your cakes that fluffiness they need. That’s the one I used for making this delicious coconut pannacotta.
The grinder accessory is very good when you need to pulse seeds or nuts to a fine powder, this works very well when I grind flaxseeds for my smoothies or to make flaxegg (vegan substitute for egg) as I do in this vegan cookie recipe or if you would like to veganise the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever. I assume it would work very well for grinding coffee but I’ve not tried myself – I’m more of a tea fan myself -.
The standmixer accessory is responsible for most of my smoothies, as it’s the easiest and cleanest way of making them: dump everything in, put the lid on, blend, job done! It comes with two blades, a smooth one and a serrated one. The smooth one has all types of standard uses, whereas the serrated one can be used for ice crushing. Obviously this one can be used for smoothies if you’re including frozen fruit in them. It has capacity for 1250ml, which allows for big batches of smoothies, hummus, gazpacho, or whatever it is you’re making.
The Cons
And after praising the living shizz out of this very recommendable appliance, I will also let you know what I don’t like so much about it. One thing is that the lids are not dishwasher safe, and neither is the immersion blender or the white part of the whisker attachment, so they each need to be hand-washed after using. The other thing is that the lid on the standmixer accessory can sometimes leak when you press the Turbo button, so I wrap a tea towel around it to avoid any splatters.
Other than that, it is a very good quality appliance for a more than reasonable price, considering all the attachments it comes with and the years of daily use I got out of it. It was well worth my money! But don’t trust me, trust the 76% of customers who rated it 5 starts on Amazon!
