Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsThe capacity is less than the name leads you to believe
Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2016
My first impression was - WOW these plastic parts are flimsy. I actually had a little trouble taking it apart / putting it together because I was afraid I'd break it. Everything worked out.
The first thing I tried was tahini and hummus. I couldn't figure out why my hummus recipe didn't want to work in this 3.5 cup mini food processor when it worked fine in my old processor which was smaller. So I measured, and - KitchenAid really misnamed this thing. They overstated how much fits in the container. The "3.5 cup" container starts to overflow through the center column if you have 2 1/3 cups of liquid. The center pole (which the blade assembly sits on) has a hole in it and is less than 2 1/2 inches high. The sides are 3 1/8 inches high. That means, if you go over 2 1/2 inches, it will overflow through the middle. It doesnt hold 3.5 cups of dry ingredients either. I tried. It holds about three if you go all the way up to the top. Naturally, you wouldn't process anything that went all the way up to the top.
I SUPPOSE - if you took out the blade assembly - you MIGHT be able to fit 3 1/2 cups of AIR in the thing, but thats a ridiculous way to measure. Who uses a food processor without a blade? I didn't expect to get 3 1/2 cups of usable capacity, but I really didn't expect this to top out at less than 2 1/2.
The instructions list the capacity as:
up to 1.5 cups of liquids / emulsions
up to 2.5 cups cooked fruits & vegetables
up to 3 cups nuts.
If I had known that liquids were limited to 1/5 cups, I probably would have bought a different model.
Anyway. I've used this a couple times, and it does work. Its also fairly quiet. And give Chop a chance. Sometimes it does a better job at pureeing ingredients than Puree does. Puree spins so fast that some ingredients don't get a chance to move.
One other thing. WASH the blade and the bowl before you use it. I had two tiny metal splinters on my blade left over from when the metal was sharpened. Thats not a dig at KitchenAid. You should always pre-wash anything that is going to come in contact with your food.
