I’ve had a lot of trouble with blenders (also known as liquidisers) over the years. I’ve had plastic ones, and at least one with a glass jug. I’ve had blenders that came as part of a food processor, and those that were separate. They’ve all been fine for the first year or so. But then, in my experience, either they become almost impossible to clean so mould starts growing around the base - or they’re easy to clean, but the seals stop working and they leak.
Our most recent one was part of our Kenwood food processor, and I was pleased with it at first; but after a few years, like most of the others, it developed problems with the seal, and started dripping. So I used it less and less. My stick blender was fine for soups and ketchup, but it wasn’t at all great at making nut milks.
I’d been browsing sites offering appliances online and had been quite impressed with reviews of high speed ‘nutrition’ blenders - recommended for smoothies as well as nut milks - but the price was well out of our range. So, wandering around Lidl in December 2018, I was pleasantly surprised to spot their ‘nutrition’ blender at just under forty euros. It looked much like the ones I’d seen online at up to five times that price.
I hadn’t been entirely happy about other Silvercrest appliances, but this was guaranteed for two years and we needed a blender. I calculated that if it worked for just a year we’d probably save its cost in making our own dairy-free milks rather than buying them in cartons, so we bought it.
When I arrived home and checked reviews online - knowing we could return it unused, if it was deemed a bad buy - I was glad to note that in all tests it compared favourably to the far more expensive branded high-speed blenders. Reviewers said its only real disadvantage was its noise level while operating.
Inside the box was the blender unit which felt pleasantly solid - not likely to slide around the worktop. There were three different clear plastic goblets (200ml, 500ml and 700ml) that could be attached, and two different bases, one with two blades, one with four. There were black plastic lids, two of them with holes, presumably for sipping a smoothie.
INSTRUCTIONS
We’ve had problems before with a lack of instructions in English with Silvercrest appliances. Sure enough, the booklet included Greek, and a few other languages, but not English. However, it was easy to find instructions online and print them out. I needed them as this blender didn’t look much like any blender I’d previously used, and I wanted to make sure we did everything correctly.
USING THE BLENDER
It was winter, not a time of year for smoothies as we only get soft fruit in the summer months. So our first use of the blender was for nut milks. I was regularly making cashew milk at the time; it only required 50g cashews for well over a litre of nut milk, with no wastage. The instructions recommended using the base with four blades for nuts or ice. So after washing the non-electrical parts of the blender as instructed, I put soaked, drained cashews into the 500ml goblet, and screwed on the four-blade base.
So far, so good.
I turned it upside down to ensure there was no leakage, and put it into the main part of the blender. Then I realised there’s no ‘on’ or ‘off’ switch. It was operated directly from the power socket, so as soon as I had the top part in place, it started up And it was, as the reviewer said, noisy. The cats left the room and I wanted to cover my ears. But at the same time I could see the cashew milk forming much more quickly than normal. About thirty seconds was plenty, so I turned it off at the wall, then carefully unscrewed the goblet part, remembered to turn it the right way up again, removed the base, and decanted the milk into a jug to go in the fridge.
CLEANING
I was very pleased to realise how easy it is to clean the blades, as the blade unit has to be removed from the goblet every time, so it goes straight into a bowl of soapy water, and there hasn’t - yet - been any mould or other problems. It’s not dishwasher safe, but so long as it’s washed fairly quickly after use, it’s quick to do and easy to drain.
LEAKING MILK
It’s good that the first time worked well. Perhaps the second and third times did, too. But at some point as I was unscrewing the goblet its base became slightly loosened too, and milk started pouring out. I rescued what I could, and cleaned the top of the electrical unit (after unplugging, of course) and was more careful next time. But it felt like a design flaw - that, while putting the goblet part onto the blender screws it in more tightly, removing it can all too easily loosen the base from the goblet and lead to excessive leaking.
I worked out how to solve this, though it’s not anywhere in the instructions: after I’ve switched the blender off at the wall, I leave it a couple of seconds then turn the entire unit - with goblet still attached - upside down. That makes it easy to remove the goblet part without the contents leaking. I have done this for a couple of years now so don’t even think about it any more, and, while unorthodox, it works.
SMOOTHIES
When summer arrived, with plentiful and inexpensive soft fruit, I did make some smoothies. The blender was extremely good at crushing ice and fruit and producing deliciously thick, homogenous smoothies. For one person, it’s ideal. For two people, not so much as the goblets are all different sizes, and we both wanted the 700ml size. And trying to sip from the lids didn’t work at all. So we decanted into ordinary glasses, as we did with previous blenders and haven’t used the lids at all.
SOUPS?
I’m pretty sure it was heat that had cracked or weakened previous plastic blenders. So, as I’d got into the habit of using my stick blender for soups and ketchup, I kept doing so. They’re easy enough to blend in a saucepan, and don’t have to be completely cool before doing so. This saves washing up, it saves the effort of having to decant in small amounts (since I make a couple of litres of soup at a time, usually), and it means that the blender has really only been used for cold items.
2023 THOUGHTS
I was slightly surprised to discover, when I checked, that we bought this blender nearly four and a half years ago. It feels more recent. I’ve used it at least twice a week in that period, for nut milks and, more recently, oat milk. It's not so good for thicker things - it's hard to keep scraping down the sides and not always easy to get mixture from the blades, even though they're more accessible than a traditional blender. So I use my food processor for humus, peanut butter, nut cheeses and similar. But even if I only count the dairy-free milks, it’s more than paid for itself, and has lasted longer than any previous blender we’ve owned.
I don't think I've used the 200ml goblet, and rarely the 700ml one. Neither have I used the two-blade base part, since the four-blade one works for everything. I’m used to the noise now - though the cats still hate it - and when it does eventually stop working, I hope Lidl will still be selling them, or an updated version, as we’ll definitely want to replace it with something similar.
Highly recommended.
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