Cuisinart Velocity Ultra 1 Hp Blender + Reviews
In each of our annual blender testings, this high-performance Cuisinart model has ranked among the top performers. The smoothie it blends is smooth and velvety with plenty of air incorporated throughout and zero bitterness. The Hurricane Pro also crushes ice effectively into small pellets. However, it has a humongous base and would have to live on the counter permanently or require a bit of manual labor to bring out of storage. We crushed ice, made smoothies, and blitzed batches of pesto to find the best full-size and personal blenders on the market.
While almost every blender we tested was of the high-performance variety , we kept seeing extremely positive reviews for this conventional KitchenAid model. And in fact, this one pulsed and crushed ice and basic smoothie ingredients better than its high-performance counterpart from KitchenAid, which we also tested . However, because it isn’t high-performance, it isn’t as well-equipped to hander studier ingredients; you won’t be able to make nut butters or milks in this model. Perhaps you aspire to fill your diet with nutrient-packed smoothies, homemade almond milk, or tropical cocktails. If so, finding the best blender—full-size or personal, depending on your needs—is crucial. Blenders range from straightforward ice-crushing machines to button-laden beats with tons of extra features, so finding the right model for you can be a bit of a challenge.
Initially, it was a little hard to figure out how to operate the Smart Stick because two buttons, the unlock button and the on button, have to be held down at once to get it started. While this is an effective safety feature, we had limited use of one arm, due to a medical procedure, which made it difficult to turn the blender on. Other than that one, potentially aggravating feature, the Smart Stick is very easy to use. The Nutribullet Pro 1000 ($80) is highly powered; it’s name comes from the 1000 watts it’s packing.
We did have some issues with leaking around the base, and the four-tip stainless steel blade assembly, though durable, doesn’t work well on smaller quantities. Cuisinart covers all of its blenders with a three-year warranty. cuisinart griddler elite One of the best features of this handy device, outside of its functionality, is its size. Even better, when not in use it breaks down into two parts for storage and the blending shaft easily pops out of the motor body.
Keep in mind that Cuisinart does charge shipping fees, so you’ll have to pay a bit even under warranty. The Cuisinart HB-155PC Smart Stick Stainless Steel Hand Blender is an electric immersion blender that’s compact and easy to use but has less functionality and doesn’t feel very durable. This model’s 500-watt motor is reasonably strong, though we found the blades less durable. Our least favorite feature was the plastic gears, which break easily. Cuisinart does offer replacement parts, along with a good three-year warranty.
It features simple controls with an on/off switch, a high/variable switch, and a dial for varying the power level yourself. It has no extra buttons or specialized settings—but we didn’t miss them. This is just a straightforward, extremely efficient, high-performance blender packing a ton of power. The motor isn’t powerful enough to handle heavy blending, and the carving knife is too long and bulky to be useful or easy to store. The 500-watt motor isn’t very powerful and may burn out quickly, and the blending capacity is small, so you won’t be able to efficiently blend large quantities.
If you’re looking to use mostly powders and liquids, this would be a good tool, but for everything with more mass than that, the BlendJet 2 falls short. The Hamilton Beach cuisinart pots and pans set Power Elite Blender ($30) was lightweight and flimsy, and the smoothie it made was full of chunks of almond and fibers of kale, even after an extra minute of blending.
It comes with two different sized cups and two lids, plus a suction cupped-bottom that keeps your blender steady even as the motor powers through tough ingredients. We weren’t sold on the twist-to-blend technique, and we found the smoothie it made rather chunky, but it was quick to create a very smooth pesto. We liked when blenders had specific settings, say for making a green smoothie or crushing ice, and we considered how well those programs worked.