Product Tests: Kenwood Triblade Blender and Maxwell & Williams Lasagne Dish Reviews
When you’re looking for great kitchenware, most people think of the brand name first. Thanks to the folks at Kitchenware Direct, I was able to product test two popular household brand names – Kenwood and Maxwell & Williams.
Kenwood Triblade Hand Blender
First up, I tested the Kenwood Triblade Hand Blender. Upon opening the box, it was apparent that this blender meant business. It has a 700 watt motor, and more attachments than you can poke a stick at. The Kenwood Triblade has stainless steel and plastic attachments for blending, mashing, pureeing, and whisking. There is also a chopper with a safety lid, and a beaker with a lid. Not bad for $139!
We tried this hand blender for various cooking duties and was mighty impressed. As a fan of pumpkin soup, I can happily report that it has passed the test of creating a really smooth pumpkin soup. The mashing, pureeing, whisking, and chopping is very easy to use and definitely beats having to do it yourself. The beaker is 750mL which is perfect for making a smoothie. It is possible to blend ice – but only if you are very careful. It does say in the manual that you are not supposed to blend ice by itself, but it seems to be ok when doing this gently while you have other ingredients (e.g. fruit) in the beaker. If you do intend to use this for crushing ice for a nice summer cocktail, I recommend that you perhaps use a hand blender that is specific for crushing ice.
All in all, this hand blender is wonderful to use. It is strong, powerful, and most of all – affordable. With the Kenwood Triblade Hand Blender, you could potentially throw away your food processor if you wanted to!
Maxwell & Williams White Basics Lasagne Baking Dish
At 42 x 35 cm, the Maxwell & Williams White Basics Lasagne Baking Dish is long and deep and thus is perfect for making a lasagne for the whole family. According to the product description on the Kitchenware Direct website, this lasagne dish is the very reason why Maxwell & Williams became a star in Australian households today. With such a bold claim, this made me very eager to see how good this lasagne baking dish really was.
In my opinion, the best test of a baking dish is:
1) There is enough space to make food to feed a family or a group of friends
2) It is easy to clean – especially important in this case since the dish is white
Lasagne isn’t quite my forte (especially since I’ve never made it before), so I made a cheesy pasta bake to prove this cookware’s worth. One thing I noticed early on was that the handles of this baking dish was perfect for baking anything without having to worry that your kitchen mittens are touching the food. It was deep enough to withstand a hungry crowd of 4, with pasta left over for the next day. Surprisingly, the dish was also rather easy to clean despite the fact that it was white so it passed the cleaning the gooey cheese test too!
Verdict
Whether it’s just making life easier, is easy to clean, or makes the job on hand quicker – there is no doubt that quality kitchenware makes the difference in any household. Sure, no electrical kitchen appliance is perfect, but the main thing is that it gets the job done well. The Kenwood Triblade and the Maxwell & Williams White Basics Lasagne Baking Dish definitely are worth having a look at
the next time you are looking for a stick blender or a baking dish.
Once again, thank you to Kitchenware Direct for letting me test out these great items.
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On this note, I (Angie) and Penny wish to announce that we are resigning from this blog and moving onto greener pastures. We have had great fun being the Wandering Gourmet over the past few years. Thank you for your support and your readership.
I am sure you two will do well. After all you two did 98% of the articles were written by you.