If you haven’t heard of Vorwerk, they are a huge company, originating from Germany, that are known for their Vacuum cleaners & food processors, amongst other things. One of their latest products, is the revamped, upgraded Thermomix food processor, which is an all singing, all dancing kitchen powerhouse. We were fortunate to get one sent over to try out!
The original Thermomix was released back in 1971, and since then, It’s continued to be developed with even more features, making it a must have for homeowners and professional kitchens. What is a Thermomix? It is a smart food processor, that will weigh, chop, blend, mix, grind, grate, cook, steam, whisk and knead, plus give access to a library onboard recipes (via the Cook Key), to make cooking easier than ever.
When I opened the box, I was greeted by a variety of attachments and accessories, that looked daunting, but later turned out to be very user friendly. Inside the box is the unit itself, complete with the bowl, blades and umpteen accessories, required to access it’s many cooking methods. The unit itself, including the bowl, its rather larger & heavy, and it will defiantly stand proud on your standard 600mm deep worksurface. On the front on the unit is the colour touchscreen display and rotary/push dial. To the side in the magnetic section for the Cook Key, and to the rear is the power plug. It looks great, it’s got a very modern design, with very simple controls. I mentioned it was heavy, which is a positive thing, as it needs that to safely perform some of it’s more demanding tasks, such as kneading dough.
I’ve referred to the Cook Key a couple of times now, and this is the brain, the part that really brings the Thermomix alive. The Cook Key is a small handheld device, that magnetically clips onto the left hand side of the Thermomix and give’s access to the Vorwerk recipe library. Via the touchscreen, you can browse the various recipes and once selected, it will run you through said recipe, in a step by step format. You are also provided with a recipe book, which tied up to the Cook Key, for an easier browse. An additional feature is the Cookidoo, which is a subscription service that allows you to import even more recipes to your Cook Key (I did not test this feature). I do believe you can purchase the Thermomix with or without the Cook Key, but I highly recommend you do get it.
Setting up the Thermomix was easy, just unbox, place it on the side, plug it in to gain power, insert the bowl/blade and off you go. If we stick to the basics for a minute, you get three options on the home screen, time, temperature & speed. With these, you can use the Thermomix as a traditional food processor, to blend or mix ingredients, with the bonus of heating them up. It does not cool, although ice cream and similar recipes are on the Cook Key, it will only blend the ingredients. With these basic settings, you can also use one of the many accessories to perform a different task, i.e the butterfly attachment for mixing up a cake or egg whites. Refer to the instructions at all times, they are very useful, and you will need them.
Take it up a gear and while using the Cook Key, you can select your recipe and follow the step by step guide. The guide will list out what ingredients you need, and when, and also set up the time, temperature & speed for that step. The Thermomix has a built-in weighing scales, so no need to weigh ingredients elsewhere, though it is a little temperamental, and you need to put the ingredients in slowly. One recipe I tried with my wife, was for cauliflower cheese. The first step was to put in some cheese, which the Thermomix weighed for us, and then it prompted use to ‘grate’ it. The screen had a set time of, no temperature and a speed that we needed to turn the knob to. The cheese was perfectly grated, there were no lumps, nor was the grates too small. The next stage was to steam the cauliflower, so we needed to use the steam attachment, on top of a water filled bowl and adjust the knob to the predetermined speed that was displayed. After that was done, we had to make the sauce, and the final product was some of the best cauliflower cheese we had every made! We also made cold coffees, which effortlessly blended the ice. We made bread, chocolate cake and a red Thai curry, which meant we used a number of different cooking techniques.
I took the Thermomix home, instead of using it in the office, so my wife got a chance to try it out before me. She kept saying how good it was, how easy it was to use and how it refuelled her love for cooking again. I was sceptical at first, I didn’t understand how it could be so good, but I came to learn, the Thermomix is an absolute game changer in the kitchen and I loved using it. It’s ease of use, its ability to make cooking with fresh ingredients easy & fun, and the quality of the finished item is superb.
So you might be wondering how much this will set you back? A fair bit im afraid! RRP with the Cook Key (a must!) is £1049, which seems a lot, well it is a lot, but it’s worth every penny! Christmas is fast approaching, I’m writing my list for Santa as we speak.
For more information, visit the official Thermomix website.
Want to see it in action…
