With the Hamilton Beach Bowl Scraper Food Processor, there’s no need to stop and remove the lid to dislodge food from the side of the bowl. The built-in scraper does the work for you, even while the processor is on for continuous processing. Kitchen tips: For a more uniform consistency, start with pieces of food that are similar in size.
Cut food into 1-inch (2.5-cm) pieces before processing with the chopping/mixing blade and leave room in the bowl for the food to be tossed around. When chopping foods, pulsing on and off will produce the best results. Operating time will depend on the quantity of food being processed. Most foods can be sliced, chopped, or shredded in seconds.
To slice or shred cheese, use firm cheeses like Cheddar or Swiss that have been chilled for at least 30 minutes. Soft cheese like Mozzarella must be placed in the freezer for 30 minutes prior to processing to ensure it is firm enough for shredding. All removable parts are top rack dishwasher safe.
K8NY –
Since our previous processor was way undersized (less than 3 cup- bought in 1988) this one is like coming out of the Dark Ages. So far it has done everything well. Initially used it for making the dough of 2 Pumpkin pies & 1 Apple pie. What I have learned in making pie dough – Do not Over Process – keep your finger on the pulsing button. With the correct amount of processing time the pie crusts turned out perfect. I must admit that both the Pulse and Selection 1st & 2nd speed are too fast. Would liked to have seen the availability of a slower speed for making dough thus the caveat in processing time. An additional slight problem with the slicer. It slices fairly well but towards the last portion of an item it slices in non uniform longer slices. Not really that great for presentation purposes. A slight annoyance but thought I’d point that out.Good value for a nice functioning processor. Will report back if I encounter any problems. So far – so good.
D L –
I purchased this as a companion tool to a KitchenAid small (small, like 1 1/2 cup) chopper.The small chopper handles routine one-portion mincing for celery, onion and mushrooms, but I wanted to get away from the drudgery of grating cabbage and carrots by hand using a steel grater to make cole slaw.As a cole slaw maker, the Hamilton Beach is hilariously fast and did a good job. To be a little picky, a smaller grater blade for the carrot would be nice but all in all the results were easily deli-quality and I’m happy there! There are of course more sophisticated machines such as the Cuisinarts but the price doubles or triples this one and that’s gonna be a return-for-investment calculation.I learned that cutting the cabbage to fit the chute took longer than actually doing the shredding. So there’s a bit of a learning curve to get the prep squared away. Also this about the chute: there’s no way in the world you’ll get large whole onion rings out of this machine like they show in the promo picture above. The chute would have to be at least three times the diameter in order to fit a whole red onion down there. Maybe a 1/4 section of onion would fit. So kinda misleading illustration there.The base has four suction cups, instead of the usual rubber feet which is a pretty good idea; but it does make lifting the unit off a counter a bit of a challenge, especially for a very non-porous surface such as polished marble (I’d guess—, we have run-of-the-mill 1980’s semi-porous countertops here, so it comes unstuck fairly easily.)Finally- the assembly is large, ten cups is a lot of volume, but some ingredients will need that extra room and won’t process correctly if the bowl is filled to capacity for them.Here’s the chart, for example:Fruits and Vegetables 2 to 3 cups (500 to 750 ml) (cut into 1-in. [2.5-cm] cubesMeats 0.7 lb. (350 g) (cut into 1-in. [2.5-cm] cubes)Parmesan or Romano 5 ounces (140 g) (cut into 1-in. [2.5-cm] cubes)Cheddar, Jack, Mozzarella 8 ounces (226 g) (cut into 1-in. [2.5-cm] cubes)Crackers 10 cups (2.3 L) (can fill bowl and lid up into chute). So you can go nuts with the crackers. :-)The pieces can be placed by nesting into one another with the lid inverted to fit into smaller storage space. Although not particularly heavy it is a large unit; the machine when fully assembled may not fit underneath cupboards if you have counter space below the cupboards.Compared to the little KitchenAid handy chopper this is like a Full size car sitting next to a go-cart. I’ll post more if it blows up or has problems doing the things it’s supposed to do.BTW, it’s not intended to chop nuts, grind coffee or knead bread. Says so in the instructions!
Biognome –
Good appliance to have, if you do a lot of cooking. This particular food processor replaced a smaller one that died on me while I was crushing ice. I was impressed by the power of the motor in this one, which had no problem at crushing ice and fruit for a delicious smoothie. The first time I used it, though, I made a huge mess. I think I may have overfilled it, because as it was running, the liquids from the pulverized fruit and ice leaked out all over the place. Other than that one time, though, I haven’t had any issues to speak of. I’m just a bit more careful with how far I fill it.I like the lever on the lid that lets you unjam food that gets gunked up in the blades. I haven’t had to use it yet, but that’s a nice touch.
Josh W. –
I do a lot of window shopping before I decide on something. My SO goes nuts because it takes me three months to decide on a kitchen knife. That being said, I did my usual amount of research before buying this thing and my due diligence did not fail me yet again. The scraper is seriously so useful. Being Korean, I make kimchee every couple of months or so – which means a lot of friggin’ garlic. This thing is awesome for mincing up some serious amounts of garlic because bigger chunks tend to get stuck at the top and not get minced evenly. The scraper solves that problem. I also tried using it to process crab meat to make it flaky to make California rolls and the motor can handle dry and dense foods like crab meat. I also tried processing chicken breast for chicken salad with it and no problems there either. The control options are pretty basic but if you can handle your own around a kitchen then gadgets with crazy settings only get in the way. With this product, there is absolutely no need to hesitate. The amazing price is just that – an awesome deal.