Can blend hot foods and crush ice Dedicated function buttons with tailored programmes Noisy on top speed No recipe book supplied The KitchenAid Diamond Blender is for those who like their sauces and soups smooth and their smoothies even silkier. A more mature version of the loveably retro Artisan Blender, the Diamond offers greater capacity and a host of handy functions that enable it to tackle almost any food that’s popped into its pitcher. Hot food and ice are its speciality, but it also promises to speed through lumpy gravy, frozen food, fruits, vegetables, meat, biscuits and bread.Called the Diamond for its durability as well as its faceted jug, this blender has inherited some design features from the Artisan blender, but most are new additions.Gone is the glass jug, replaced by a lighter plastic pitcher with four blades. Its capacity is far more generous at a large 1.75 litres, with clearly visible measurements on the front and back (in cups/oz and ml/l), a tight-fitting push-on lid and detachable measuring cup.

The buttons on the front panel are sleeker and more angular, and while the functions are represented by symbols, they’re easy to understand without checking the manual. Five buttons across the top control the main functions – Hot Food, Chop, Mix, Puree and Liquify – while Crush Ice and Pulse sit to one side of the power button.The base itself, as with most KitchenAid models, is made from die-cast metal in one of four colours: Empire Red, Onyx Black, Almond Cream or Contour Silver. A handy cable store underneath takes care of any extra flex, which at 114.3cm, helps to give several options for where the blender’s used.Footprint-wise, the machine is relatively compact compared to most, but it’s tall to accommodate the capacity of the jug, meaning it may have to live on a worktop instead of in a cupboard, unless it’s disassembled. It weighs an average 4.5kg, so moving it around isn’t too arduous.While there isn’t a recipe book included, there are plenty of tips for getting the best results from different foods – such as making baby food or pancake batter – in the instructions.

SEE ALSO: Best Coffee Machines Round-upPutting the machine together is an intuitive process – the jug swivels securely into the base, its lid pushes on top until it’s clearly in place and the measuring cup twists in. The lid features a loop to remove it and there are no interlocking grooves, which makes taking it off far easier. vitamix total nutrition center 6300It also fits over the spout, so there are no splashes.ninja xl master prep professional blender nj600We started by using the Chop function on carrots. kitchenaid artisan 4l food processor empire redWhile dropping them in intermittently worked at first, the Diamond chops finely and the prepared carrots began to clump, holding onto larger chunks that had spun away from the blades. cuisinart poweredge 700-watt blender reviews

Starting with a larger amount and scraping between uses gave a better result, although it wasn’t as consistent as a food processor.SEE ALSO: Best Toasters Round-upThe Hot Food function performed far better. It runs as a programme, starting slowly at 2000rpm and rising to a breathtaking 11,500rpm. The top speed is incredibly loud for the short time it’s running, but the consistency of the steaming carrot and lentil soup we’d put in was sublime – thick, viscous and impressively restaurant-standard. kitchenaid artisan blender lakelandScraping the jug out while avoiding the blades is a little awkward, but the straight sides make it easier.kitchenaid khb2351cu 3-speed immersion blender reviewNext, we tried the Crush Ice function. vitamix turboblend vs cia

A pulsing programme, it again has a slow start that transforms cubes into a fine snow without turning it to water, making it ideal for flavoured slush and cocktails. Finally, we used the Liquify function to make frozen yoghurt from pre-frozen plain yoghurt and fruit. While this took a little longer than crushing ice, the result was smooth and still partially frozen, needing only a little extra time to refreeze solid.Cleaning afterwards was simple – it’s both suitable for washing by hand and dishwashing, plus the durable finish of the base means it only needs a quick wipe over to remove any residue.There’s no denying that there are lots of blenders on the market, but there are far few that are as well thought out and robust as this one. Rather than a one-speed-fits-all approach, the Diamond’s tailored programmes take the guesswork out of daily food preparation – essential if you’re keen to achieve effortlessly smooth results every time. A host of design features make it easy to use, plus there are some elements, such as its leak-preventing one-piece pitcher and its snugly fitting lid, that ensure it’ll still be blitzing through food in years to come.

Offering reliability, power and functionality without a high-end price tag, the Diamond Blender could be a cook’s best friend.Next, read more Home Appliance ReviewsAfter we spent 21 seconds trying to blend a banana mixed with some soy milk and ice, almost all of the banana remained. We mixed the contents around a bit by hand and turned the Tango on for an additional 36 seconds, but its blades came to a standstill against the ice and fruit long before that time was up. We smelled smoke and cut the motor. Results were similar with the more difficult-to-blend fruits—because the Tango's blades couldn't crush the small amount of ice in the blender, they never got close to blending up the fruit chunks.Convinced that the Tango would never do any "extreme" blending, we tried a mixed drink test with ice and water. The tango performed a bit better here, blending up some of the ice completely, but many large pieces (longer than one inch) remained.This blender failed every test on our list, showing that horsepower alone won't lead to effective blending if the blades and blender pitcher don't do their part of the job.

After forty seconds macerating a whole banana at top speed, the Blendtec had crushed the ice to Frappuccino consistency, but had only eaten through half the fruit. After we mixed the pitcher around a bit and blended for another minute, the results looked a bit better, but left a large chunk of fruit with the peel on. We were having similarly disappointing results with the whole orange, so we poured the contents of the pitcher into a larger Blendtec pitcher ($90) with a 4-inch blade. With this pitcher, the Blendtec ate through the orange easily and left us with something that looked a lot like orange juice. But even with the larger pitcher, the blender could not blend an entire Red Delicious apple. We gave it plenty of time and used several settings—the whole-juice setting, the regular setting, even the ice-crushing setting. It didn't seem to matter. Half of the apple remained in the pitcher, leading us to question whether a blender that can't get through an actual apple can possibly blend Apple computer products.

We measured the Blendtec's ice-crushing abilities by testing a peach ice cream recipe that came in the Blendtec cookbook. Its ingredients included frozen peaches, half and half, sugar, vanilla and ice cubes. The book says that this recipe can take as little as 15 seconds—less time than the normal ice cream setting affords. After three minutes in ice cream mode (three cycles), we had a delicious frozen treat—a chewy ice-cream-like slush.A more normal ice-crushing test produced ice of a very fine consistency—one of the finest in this test. But the blender required a fair amount of water to do its job; it can't shave a pitcher of ice without more than a cup of liquid.While some of what we blended in the normal Blendtech pitcher came out remarkably smooth, other tests produced chunky results that we wouldn't expect in a machine priced at nearly $500.It took the Hemisphere one go and just 40 seconds to liquefy the banana, and it didn't need any pushing or prodding to get the job done.

The orange was a similar story. The Hemisphere was one of two blenders that could turn a whole apple into applesauce without whining, smoking or leaving a large chunk of core. Though we rank the Breville number three overall, it made an impressive showing in the fruit-crushing category, and would be our number-two choice for whole fruit smoothies. Here's what kept it from the absolute top of the pack: Though it chomped through all the fruit and ice we fed it, the final consistency of the blended liquid was not completely smooth. It reminded us of the results from a food processor, while the results from our top two blenders were as smooth as toothpaste.Though the Breville did a serviceable job of blending ice into liquid, a few frustrating half-inch chunks remained. The ice cream was similar to that of the Blendtec—tasty, but not smooth.The Breville isn't a cheap blender, but it does cost less than three of the blenders in this test. It struck us as a solid workhorse machine that will satisfy most people's blending needs.

Without the tamper, the Vita-Mix can't compete with most of the blenders on this list. We first tried our banana test without it, and the blender made a poor showing, blending only half the fruit. With a couple of quick pushes from the tamper, however, the banana was gone—giving us pudding-smooth results in just 10 seconds. The results were similar with the orange. But with the apple, about a third of the fruit remained whole after blending—it didn't matter how much we pushed on it with the tamper. This disappointing result kept this blender from being an all-out winner.We made the same ice cream recipe with the Vita-Mix as we did with the Blendtec, and the difference was huge. While the Blendtec ice cream was icy and chewy, the Vita-Mix ice cream had a smooth, ice cream-like consistency, impressing all of our tasters. It's a recipe we'd make again. The Vita-Mix was also able to crush our ice and water mixture effectively and without incident.With the exception of the apple flub, the Vita-Mix performed well, delivering the smoothest results in this test.

The fact that it is tamper-dependent, however, led some in the office to write it off. The tamper is another part to clean—and to misplace in a messy kitchen drawer.The Kitchen Aid destroyed all the fruit we threw at it, and it did it quickly, without us having to turn the blender off and push the contents around. In this category, it was the clear winner, showing that sheer power can't trump good blade design.The Kitchen Aid ice cream, while tasty and reminiscent of real ice cream, was not as smooth as the Vita-Mix version.When it came to ice, the Kitchen Aid was the best at crushing more ice with less water, although the final consistency of the ice was a bit rougher than that of the Vita-Mix and Blendtec.The Kitchen Aid is clearly the best value on the list, in terms of performance per dollar. We were concerned about black marks on the blender jar in areas where the jar had contact with the blender base. It seemed like the machine was working so hard that it was hurting itself in the process, leading us to wonder whether it could withstand months of wear and tear.