KitchenAid 13 Cup Food Processor KFP1319

A veritable whizz in the kitchen – I recently purchased this as a replacement for another brand food processor which literally fell apart! Very happy so far with this 13 cup, 3 ltr processor which comes with all the attachments I will ever need. The base of the processor is metal, but nevertheless light enough to move in and out of the cupboard. It also has a very clever design whereby most of the accessories, including the blades, fit in a caddy which fits inside the bowl. Another good feature is the way the processing bowl simply clicks onto the base and the lid clicks onto the bowl. So no more twisting of bowls and lids to try and get the machine to work. It also means that the bowl, when fitted with the lid, is leak-proof, so you can fill the bowl with warm soapy water and blitz it to clean it. It comes with a refrigerator lid, so the bowl with contents can be stored in the fridge. Its 2 speeds and a pulse button are more than sufficient for my purposes.

The disks include a reversible shredding disk, a slicing blade, a stainless steel blade and dough blade. I particularly like the slicing blade. One blade can slice up to 7 thicknesses by means of a unique thickness knob on the lid, and yes, it works well. It means that you don't need a variety of slicing blades to get the desired result. I managed to make quite decent potato fries by using the largest thickness, then cutting the slices into batons. Worked really well. Another handy blade is the dicing kit with its clean-out tool. Again it works really well for dicing things like apples, carrots and potatoes, ie. any firm vegetable or fruit. Making pastry was a breeze, as you can easily open the lid to scrape the sides if needed or add other ingredients. I also chopped up some vegetables in the processor and they came out uniformly chopped without turning into a mushy mess. All the parts are dishwasher safe (in the top rack), although I personally would be reluctant to put the stainless steel processor blade in the dishwasher as they can become blunt over time.

A couple of gripes - and minor ones at that - are that the assembled unit is quite high, so you will no doubt need to store the unit and bowl separately and there are areas (such as around the edge of the slicing disk) which tend to collect food scraps so you do need to pay attention to this when cleaning. As with most kitchenaid products, it comes in various colors to match the stand mixer. For me personally this was a good choice given the variety of tasks that can be done with a minimum of fuss. Like all kitchenaid products, a well designed machine which is easy to use.