Full review and results chart: bit.ly/1p0gvHP Buy our winning blender: amzn.to/1p1ksvX We wanted crushed ice and smooth puree. Was that too much to ask? To find out, we corralled 9 blenders—everything from an affordable $40 appliance to our luxe benchmark, the Vitamix, as well as a new copy of the KitchenAid. Hummus, crushed ice, margarita, and milkshake tests were givens, but to separate the workhorses from the wimps, every day for a month we also made smoothies in each one with fibrous frozen pineapple and stringy raw kale. Glimpse behind the scenes of our testing process, and learn which blender came out on top. Note: We pitted the Blendtec Total Blender against the Vitamix in a testing from 2009, and we found the Blendtec absurdly turbo-charged, turning a smoothie into thin juice. Worse, it couldn't perform the main function required of a blender (crushing ice), as its extreme speed and power made no difference when ice got trapped out of reach. With too many function buttons, piercing noise levels, and an inability to crush ice, we were disappointed with this pricey blender. With only two blades and a jar with limited tapering, this blender's design created air pockets between the blades and the ice so that no matter how fast the blade spun, the cubes remained out of reach. America's Test Kitchen is a real 2,500 square foot test kitchen located just outside of Boston that is home to more than three dozen full-time cooks and product testers. Our mission is simple: to develop the absolute best recipes for all of your favorite foods. To do this, we test each recipe 30, 40, sometimes as many as 70 times, until we arrive at the combination of ingredients, technique, temperature, cooking time, and equipment that yields the best, most-foolproof recipe. Each week, the cast of America's Test Kitchen brings the recipes, testings, and tastings from Cook's Illustrated magazine to life on our public television series. With more than 2 million viewers per episode, we are the most-watched cooking show on public television. www.americastestkitchen.com More than 1.3 million home cooks rely on Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines to provide trusted recipes that work, honest ratings of equipment and supermarket ingredients, and kitchen tips. www.cooksillustrated.com www.cookscountry.com Follow us: Twitter: www.twitter.com/testkitchen Facebook: www.facebook.com/americastestkitchen

Be the first to comment