Battle of the Baby Cuises

[Jenise]

I have a small Cuisinart Mini-Prep that I bought about 10 years ago that looks like a junior version of my 25 year old original Food Processor, and about two years ago received a new space-agey looking model as a free gift with something I bought at Macy's. But I never even got it out of the box, presuming it was identical except in looks and possibly not as good mechanically.

Never got it out of the box until today, that is, because a friend needs one to grind home-made cat food in and I want to give her one of mine.

It was instantly obvious that the bowl of the new one is slightly larger (by maybe 6 ounces) and slightly flared in shape, like a winsor sauce pan, where the other was a straight cylinder. But more importantly, the blade is quite different: high on one side, lower on the other, and angled--this blade looks like it will lift while it chops, and that will resolve my complaint about the old baby Cuise, which I tend to use only for liquid-based blends because solids get packed on the bottom.

This called for a test, so I loaded a handful of walnuts into each and ran them for two 4-second intervals. Bingo--the improvement was evident after each interval. There was more consistency in the new unit after four seconds and only a few medium chunks left after eight, where the old unit after eight had fine powder and a large number of big chunks that had just flown around the top of the unit while the blades busied themselves packing everything else beneath them.

The next benefit was obvious when I removed the blades and dumped the ground nuts out--the old Cuise had more ground nut mass packed into the base of the bowl. Though the quantity of nuts was only about 1/8th the capacity of the bowl, the old Cuise could not have handled a larger quantity without making nut butter in the bottom of the bowl. The new one obviously could.

So which to give away? Neither--keep the new one, and take Vanessa shopping for one just like it!

Nice report Jenise. Thanks. I too have one of the very first ones on the market and have been wondering if I should update. I actually use it almost daily and it is in perfectly good working order. Have had to replace the blade once and the feed tube once. Great appliance. I have always thought that the problem you mention with nuts was because my blade is somewhat dull but there has always been a "cake" with many items that the new models seem to have taken care of.

On a related note, what is your preferred method of blending more liquid ingredients - Cuise, blender, immersion stick, food mill ? For totally uniform consistency I opt for food mill. Have never been happy with the processor results in this arena.

[Jenise]

Christina, UPGRADE. But one caveat--you mention a feeding tube, so we may not be talking about the same appliance. The Mini-Prep does not have a feeding tube--it's literally too small for one.

My original Cuisinart was the conventional kitchen size, though they made one extra large capacity. I don't know sizes, but I'd guess 5-6 cups. The Mini-Prep is WAY smaller, about 1.5 cups, and I expected it to be a small-capacity alternative to the regular Cuisinart whose bowl is too big and therefore too shallow for small volumes.

But it didn't work out like that. It's inconsistent at tasks like nut chopping, as shown by this example, and it never achieves a true puree--never really smooth nor creamy. The blades trap stuff below them and do not move fast enough to outrun the swirling mass, so it just whizzes the food to a point and then moves it around in circles. I've used it mostly to grind something solid into a salad dressing where a liquid would keep the solids suspended and moving, and it does a nice job on a small quantity of pesto or romesceau because both are coarse grinds and that's all this thing does well. But many other tasks I expected it to be useful for, it's not.

The new one might well be what I wished the old one to be. It's the same power--250 watts--but the high-low angled blades hit the mass at two different elevations. My old larger Cuise has the same flat blade I'm complaining about in the Mini-Prep, but it at least has sufficient power to outrun the food its processing.

If the new regulation size Cuisinarts have an improved blade design, it could be something to consider.

Re blending liquid ingredients, I guess it depends on quantities and textures. I use an immersion blender or a food mill whenever I can, and only revert to a standard blender when quantities dictate. I tend to use the food processor for things I wouldn't use any of the others for: grinding meats, making progressive-step mixtures and forcemeats, mixing pasta doughs, and the like.