Orient 23Ltrs Microwave Oven Pasta 23D Grill

  The mixer is a SilverCrest Professional Food Processor 113374 With a 1300w motor. First impressions are okay, obviously, it’s not as glamourous and seductively good looking as a KitchenAid or the Kenwood version but it’s not a bad looking piece of kit. It’s lightweight, the body being plastic instead of metal, much easier to move around than my stand mixer but it’s bigger too so takes up more room on the worktop or in a cupboard. It has a wider base than a regular stand mixer which appears a little odd but once I put it in to use it’s actually hugely stabilizing,  it can knead bread at a fair old whack without walking across the worktop. It has 3 attachments – a beater blade for cake mixes, cookie doughs, etc, a whisk for egg whites and cream, and a dough hook, plus a splash guard. The beater blade doesn’t have silicone wings (one of the reasons I love a k-Mix) so you do have to stop and scrape down the bowl to make sure everything is being mixed in properly from time to time.  Not a huge issue to discount it. It makes good cake mixes, comparable with my other mixers. The dough hook – kneads bread exceptionally well, something I have to admit I was surprised at and had expected it to fall down here but it didn’t.  It made me a great loaf and was kneaded in less time than my other mixers would do. The whisk – well it was beaten when trying to whisk 2 egg whites, it just couldn’t reach them enough to whip them up.  More than 2 and it’s game on, the power needs to be well up to get it going.  Whips up cream in no time at all without any issues. The bowl is big in size (6.5litre) and good if you’re making plenty of mixtures.  It doesn’t have a handle though which I find a little inconvenient for maneuvering after mixing. The splash guard has a good fit and an opening spout to make additions whilst in operation. It seems a little noisy to me, all stand mixers are if you’re stood next to them for prolonged periods of time. The head lift mechanism seems a bit clunky you have to hold it in release until the head lifts to the top rather than just a flick to release.  A minor issue in the scheme of things, it’s sturdy and doesn’t feel like it would break. It has a good power, the 1300w motor certainly seems cut out for it, with a wide range of speeds plus a pulse button which I actually found very useful for folding in (better than the fold function on a k-Mix as I had more control) There’s also a glass blender attachment included with a 1.5l capacity, it made light work of quickly blitzing homemade soup.  There are no further attachments available (pasta maker, mincer etc) and no way of attaching alternatives to the machine.  Something to bear in mind if you can see yourself wanting to go down that road in the future. The power cable length is an adequate size and caused no issues being too long or too short.