When our previous blender died, nearly three years ago, we knew we wanted another. At the time I used my blender regularly for smoothies in the summer, and soups in the winter. We don’t have a huge selection of kitchen appliances available in Cyprus stores, but there were at least ten different blenders available in varying sizes, designs and prices.
We automatically rejected the most expensive. We also rejected the cheapest, which appeared to be somewhat flimsy. That left us with about three options, and we did rather swither between a sturdy-looking Bosch, and a couple of Moulinex blenders.
BUYING THE BLENDER
Besides, we had used Moulinex blenders before and found them very good. So that's what we bought.
SETTING UP THE BLENDER
The instruction guide, in several languages, was minimal - a page of safety instructions, and a page explaining how to put the thing together, and what to do if it goes wrong. Setup is easy; the whole device was enclosed in moulded polystyrene, including the base with the usual three-pin plug attached to a cable.
The jug part has a removable base, for cleaning, although we didn’t really see the significance of that until later. There’s a black plastic lid which slots easily enough in place, and the jug has to be set in the correct position on the base, twisted slightly to lock into place, before the motor will work. A slight design fault, in my view, is that the lid does not have to be in place - however, we’re experienced enough with blenders that I would not attempt to use it without the lid on!
There’s a measuring guide on the side of the jug, showing that the capacity is 1.25 litres. It’s not something I’ve had to use - I tend to measure ingredients before adding them, if I need to - but was useful to know that it was there, if I needed it, embedded in the glass.
USING THE BLENDER
There are three settings on this blender: a medium and fast speed (1 and 2) and a pulse for finer control. There’s also a button for ice crushing, which we thought would be useful for smoothies. Operation is easy enough - items to be blended are put inside the jug, the lid put in place, and then the motor switched on for as long as necessary. The instruction guide told us that it should not be on for more than about 90 seconds at a time, but with my previous blenders, a minute - or less - had usually been sufficient for almost anything.
PROBLEMS WITH THE BLENDER
Unfortunately, despite its smart looks, this blender is nowhere near as good as my previous ones. 400 watts should be powerful enough, and the metal blades at the bottom look as strong as any other blender I’ve had. But somehow, despite lengthy blending, sometimes three or four minute-and-a-half sessions with breaks, I can never smoothies to be as smooth as I want them. The ice crushing works well; I usually start by using that on a few ice cubes before adding fruit, but I’m not sure that it’s any more effective than simply adding ice to the rest of the mixture and blending together.
Soft fruit such as bananas and grapes are no problem, but if I use peaches or pears, even quite ripe ones, there always seem to be chunks left in the smoothie. We solved the problem creatively by buying extra-wide straws, sometimes using long spoons to eat chunks of fruit; but it’s annoying that the blender seems unable to blend as thoroughly as it ought to. When I first had it, I used it to puree soups in the winter - or tried to. After several very lumpy soups, we decided to get a simple stick blender, which we found much more effective.
CLEANING THE BLENDER
The standard way to clean a blender is to rinse it out quickly as soon as it has been used, then put a dash of washing up liquid in it, with some hot water, replace the lid, and set it to blend for a few seconds. This is a good method of cleaning the sides, and we found that doing this - followed by rinsing in hot water - would leave the blender looking pretty clean. However, the fact that the base of the jug is removable means that, every so often, I could see little pieces of food stuck down the side. No amount of poking or whizzing would get rid of it, so we had to unscrew this part, and clean it separately.
LEAKING FROM THE BLENDER
After about six months of regular use, I realised that I was starting to see drips from the bottom of the jug when I used it. I tried twisting the removable base part, and realised that a small piece of plastic had somehow broken off. So it was no longer possible to lock the removable base fully in place.
Someone suggested that we might need a new rubber seal, so we found a UK site that sold new ones and bought a pack of two, quite inexpensively. Unfortunately, this made no difference at all.
REPAIRS TO THE BLENDER
Since we had a year’s warranty, we took it back to the shop where we had bought it. We got into quite an argument - the guy we spoke to at first tried to insist that the warranty only covered the motor, and that we had broken this plastic piece so it was not covered.
We insisted that it was a design problem, and eventually, after speaking to his superior, we were able to have it sent off for repairs. A couple of weeks later our blender returned with a new base part that fitted so well that I could not, at first, unscrew it at all.
FURTHER PROBLEMS WITH THE BLENDER
Since this base fitted so well, and since I was no longer using the blender for soups, I thought I’d stick with the method of whizzing to clean rather than trying to take it apart. I did this successfully for a year or so, only using the blender for smoothies, and giving it a whizz with clean water before each use if it smelled a bit musty.
Then I started making coconut milk with desiccated coconut in the blender. And I found that bits of coconut got stuck around the sides. I once tried cleaning-by-whizzing about five times and was still seeing little pieces of coconut - so I carefully unscrewed the base. There I found that the rubber seal had gone somewhat grossly black, apparently with the gunge of the past year.
Happily I still had the replacement rubber seals I had previously bought, so replaced the gungy one with a new one. Since then I’ve been careful to take it apart to clean it at least once a week. Which was fine until about a week ago... when I noticed a couple of drips from the bottom of the blender. When I checked, the plastic was still all there but the base was no longer locking as well as it should.
FUTURE OF THE BLENDER
At present, it still works well enough. The drips aren’t extensive, and smoothie season is coming to an end. I will continue to use it for coconut milk as long as I can, although I could probably make that in the food processor. The blender is now well out of warranty, so while I could probably get hold of a replacement base from the UK, for about £20, I’m not sure if it’s worth it. I could buy a new, and possibly more reliable blender for not much more.
CONCLUSIONS
I can no longer find this blender listed on Amazon, or indeed any other UK website. Amazon does have a listing for the DAE242, which appears to be identical, but it’s ‘not currently available’, and no price is given. Perhaps Moulinex had too many complaints and have withdrawn it.
In any case, despite the smart appearance of this particular blender, there are too many problems with it, in my view. I would not recommend it to anyone.
2022 UPDATE
This blender kept going, more-or-less, for another two or three years. I replaced the seals a couple of times more, but the drips were becoming increasingly annoying. And then it started making unpleasant sounds, so was clearly on its way out.
Rather than replacing with another blender, we then bought a Kenwood 'multipro' food processor which came with a blender attachment.
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