12/07/2011

Smart Stick Hand Blender with Whisk and Chopper Holiday Review

In other words, if you need to do more than blending, minor chopping, or minor whipping, you should probably use a blender, food processor, or hand mixer, not the Smart Stick. All blenders, food processors, and hand mixers have multiple speeds and switches that lock "on" to keep the motor going at a specific speed for long periods of time or to allow for measured, accurate, repeated bursts of blending/chopping/mixing.

(3) The single-use appliances like hand blenders are usually much easier to clean than their full-size, fully capable counterparts. You clean the one removable part and wipe the base or motor, and that's it.

On a real blender, you're supposed to take the bottom off, remove the blade, remove the rubber washer and wash the pitcher, the blade, and the bottom -- WITHOUT the gear attachment! -- in your sink or dishwasher. You can't put the motorized part or the gear attachments in dishwater or in a dish washer, unless you want to wet the motor (and probably kill it) and make the gears rust.

On the Smart Stick, because of its design, you can't put any of the attachments in a dishwasher or in a sink filled with soapy water, because they mesh with the base via plastic and metal gears at the top of each attachment. The only one you can put in the dishwasher is the whisk part of the whipping attachment (not the gear part of the whipping attachment).

Now, on to how the Smart Stick functions:

This hand blender is a little work horse with three major things going for it: stainless steel blades, stainless steel blender, and a good, fast motor.

You can blend soups with it, make smoothies (with ice cubes, frozen berries, frozen chunk fruits like mango, etc.), make shakes, mix drinks, crack ice. (Okay, don't do the latter. The manual says not to, and I didn't get that adventurous with it until after I'd had it over a year. And the cubes I'm cracking are from ice cube TRAYS, not the refrigerator ice maker. That said, it *can* chop ice cubes. You probably shouldn't, but it is possible, as long as the ice cubes aren't huge ones from your fridge ice maker or from store-bought bags of ice.)

It makes smoothies very well, but I've used it to make shakes (some of them quite thick, accidentally), and to whip eggs for omelettes or scrambled eggs. I use the BLENDER to whip eggs, not the whipping attachment. I froth milk with the blender when I don't feel like using my Melitta espresso maker to steam-and-froth milk. The Smart Stick makes a nice head on hot chocolate. It mixes horchata well. You can make faux cappuccino with cold or hot "frothed" milk by using the blender for a long time on the milk with your finger depressing the switch the whole time, and then pouring only the "head" of the milk into your espresso (which will be most of the milk, depending how long you blended it).

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I've changed my mind about this blender Cuisinart CSB-77

My original review was very negative, but I have come to really enjoy the Cuisinart Stick Hand Blender. One of the nicest things about it is the mini-processor, which works well to make small portions and eliminates getting out the Big Cuisinart (with all that the cleanup of that entails). All of my initial concerns have subsided -- I still do think that Cuisinart should have paid the shipping for the replacement part, but now that this is safely in the past, I am enjoying using this appliance. It literally saved the day when I was making "Fleming's Potatoes" and neglected to process the leeks before putting into the cream sauce with the cheese. A few zaps with the blender and all was well. I've always respected the Cuisinart brand name, and that's one of the major deciding factors that helped me choose this product. I wasn't disappointed. I love the brushed steel look, and especially the versatility. Very easy to clean, too. I've always been annoyed at how loud similar products have been but the motor is quite quiet, and unless I'm blending crushed ice it's a nice volume level during use.
The only thing that bothers me is the blade in the chopping cup is a bit difficult to clean if anything is stuck on it, since it is so slick but the blades are so sharp, and the pulse button style is a little trigger-happy so I have a few more inadvertent spins when not in food, which just sprays my food a little bit when I slip. *that one is more my fault though!*

I bought the Cuisinart Smart Stick to replace my Braun immersion blender, whose plastic was finally cracking after 12 years (it still runs like a charm). The Smart Stick is a nice elegant design with it's stainless steel. The multi attachments are nice. The food chopped does short work of herbs and nuts (can end up mincing too fine if you're not careful). The whisk is scary. I haven't yet figured out what type of a container I should be whisking in. Tried whisking some pudding in a deep 4 cup glass measuring cup (2 cups of pudding) and ended up with pudding covering a good portion of myself, the wall and surrounding area. I think you probably need to use the tall narrow container that the machine comes with, otherwise watch out. The other cool feature of course is the fact that the power unit detaches from whatever attachment you're using, so quite literally you can have three things going on at one time, simply by detaching and connecting the power unit to another attachment. Which also lends itself to easy clean up. Great small appliance, will buy another if and when this one wears out.

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