Kitchen space is a big issue for many families. My previous house had very little surface space to prepare food. My new home is much better but I often wish I had more room or more compact gadgets.
Russel Hobbs have bought out a new range of kitchen gadgets called Aura. These gadgets are cleverly designed for families where space may be an issue. Here is what Russel Hobbs say about the new range.
Thanks to Aura, the new multifunctional range from Russell Hobbs, you can successfully complete every culinary process with the help of just a few kitchen appliances. This collection of sleek, white, versatile kitchen appliances covers all bases in the kitchen and allows you to whip up everything from quick and easy snacks to a cordon bleu masterpiece.
Powerful and stylish, the multifunctional nature of the products mean that you don’t need them all and they can be kept on the worktop, but are compact enough to be neatly tucked away, so that much needed space is never an issue.
Russel Hobbs sent us over a new hand blender from the Aura range. It’s probably one of the easiest gadgets I have ever used both to assemble and use.
The blender itself comes out of the box in 2 pieces, the motor and the blade. These easily click together then just plug in and ready to use.
The blender has a stainless steel blade which is not particularly sharp to touch but is extremely fast once on. It has a speed/power dial and is powered by pressing a simple on switch.
The appliance is easy to hold and does not slip. It can do the same jobs as a bigger blender does and is ideal for soups, smoothies, desserts, baby food amongst many other things. It’s best to use it in 10-30 second pulses to avoid wearing out the motor and mushing up food too much.
With the blender comes a 0.5 litre jug which is very handy and minimises spills which usually occur in a larger bowl. The hand blender can of course be used with any other bowls or pans.
This is so simple to use and put together that I didn’t really need to read the instructions, but with the instruction booklet comes a useful recipe guide with all sorts of soup, smoothie, egg ideas to make using the hand blender. One of these recipes is called Strawberry Mess. I’m sure it’s exactly the same recipe as Eton Mess and involves whipped cream, meringues and strawberries.
The recipe portion sounded quite small so I doubled up on the ingredients and also added a full punnet of raspberries, along with 200ml whipping cream, 10 small meringue shells, 7 large strawberries. All of this recipe involved using the hand blender.
First I had to whip the cream. I was shocked at how quickly the hand blender turned it from liquid to whipped cream with peaks. It took about 15/20 seconds and the majority stayed in the beaker.
The cream was transferred to a bowl and then it was time to crush up the meringues. Again this was very fast and very easy to do considering they are quite hard.
The final part is the fruit, full strawberries and raspberries go in and a fruit purée comes out.
And yes I know it looks like something from Halloween doesn’t it!
Well it is called “Strawberry Mess”. It looks a bit of a mess but it tastes delicious. A bit like a creamy fruity yoghurt with crunchy bits.
I think it’s fair to say that this little girl enjoyed it.
There are many things that can be done with one of these handy gadgets. They really are very multifunctional. We can now enjoy healthy morning smoothies too just like this one.
The hand blender blends so well that there are virtually no lumps left at all, it’s very impressive.
The only small problem I found with it is that when blending thicker foods or creams, some of the food will become stuck in the blade part meaning I have to unplug and manually remove which can be a little annoying, but apart from that it’s a great little gadget.
After use, the blade part detaches and can be washed along with the beaker then simply stored in a cupboard, drawer or on the kitchen side.
The Aura hand blender costs £29.99 from Russel Hobbs and other products in the Aura Collection include a juicer, food processor and mixers.
