Braun MultiQuick 9 Hand Blender MQ9187XLI review: Fabulously feature-packed
The MultiQuick 9 is an excellent hand blender and a highly competent food processor as well
Pros
- Excellent blender
- Powerful
- Incredibly easy to use
Cons
- Some attachments aren’t so great
- Ingredients sometimes left behind when using the food processor
The MultiQuick 9 MQ9187XLI is Braun’s beefiest hand blender yet, with a powerful 1,200W motor and attachments galore. It’s one of three new models, designed to replace a multitude of tools in your kitchen, and takes care of tasks from kneading dough to making French fries.
A decent step up from its predecessor in almost every way, the Braun MQ9187XL has a bigger motor, bigger food processing capacity, more attachments and an updated design. Some of the attachments are a tad unnecessary but, if you’re looking for a do-it-all tool for blending, chopping and whisking, the MultiQuick 9 is one of the best hand blenders you can buy right now.
Braun MultiQuick 9 Hand Blender MQ9187XLI review: What do you get for the money?
There is, quite literally, a lot to unpack here. At £180, this is by no means a budget hand blender, but for that price you’ll get an army of accessories. These include the multipurpose handle, the main stainless steel hand blending attachment, a 500ml and 2,000ml chopping bowl with standard food processing blades, a kneading hook, an ice crushing knife, five blade inserts for things such as julienning and fine slicing, a French fry disc, a purée accessory, a mini whisk and a lidded beaker – phew.
The multipurpose handle, which houses the motor and speed control buttons, is a mixture of stainless steel, plastic and a non-slip rubber material for better grip, and there’s a detachable blending shaft made from 100% brushed stainless steel. Other attachments are mostly made of a mixture of plastic and steel. Most parts are dishwasher safe, with the exception of the handle and gearbox lids, which are wipe-clean only.
READ NEXT: The best hand blenders to buy
For the most part, this looks and feels like the premium hand blender it is, although a large chunk of its cost comes from those additional accessories. If you’re looking to spend less, you might want to consider one of the scaled-back models of the Multiquick 9 such as the £114 MQ9135XI, which comes with the main hand blender attachment, a mini 500ml food processor, a steel whisk and beaker.
Alternatively, the £129 MQ9138XI model comes equipped with all this, as well as an additional ice-crushing knife and, more interestingly, a spice grinder, an accessory that doesn’t come with the premium MQ9187XLI model.
Braun MultiQuick 9 Hand Blender MQ9187XLI review: What’s good about it?
Even before you get to all those accessories, the most striking thing about the MultiQuick 9 is how simple it is to use. There are two different ways to control speed. The first is via a button at the top of the handle, which allows you to switch between high speed, low speed and pulse functions. The other, on the side, is a button that increases the speed of the blade the harder you press.
This makes it simple to instantaneously switch between vigorous and gentle blending, and you don’t even have to take your finger off the button. There’s also a safety lock feature that triggers after a few seconds of inactivity to prevent accidental activation. This can be disabled using a button on top of the blender’s handle.
The Braun MultiQuick 9 makes it just as easy to switch between blending, chopping and whisking, especially compared with other multipurpose blenders I’ve tested. The motorised handle detaches from the bottom half of the blending shaft with the squeeze of a button and effortlessly clicks into the top of other attachments. There are no fiddly locks or awkward twisting to get it to fit, making it a genuinely pleasant experience to use.
READ NEXT: Get baking with the best stand mixers
The blender itself is fantastic. It blitzed through a variety of ingredients swiftly and with ease, including tinned chickpeas when making hummus and cooked root vegetables, two types of food that less powerful blenders can struggle with.
Accessory-wise there’s a fantastic selection of food processor blades for fine and thick slices, as well as for grating and julienning. There’s even a separate accessory for French fries. In testing, these all achieved the desired result, with the exception of the French fry cutter, which was hit and miss and created a lot of waste.
The speed of the blades can’t be faulted either, as they grate and slice in a matter of seconds. It made quick work of carrots, peppers and cauliflower with no resistance, making it ideal for batch-prepping vegetables for a variety of meals including salad, curry, soup and pasta sauce.
Braun MultiQuick 9 Hand Blender MQ9187XLI review: What could be improved?
As touched on above, the French fry attachment is far from perfect. It did make nicely shaped fries when it worked, but it required too much prep to achieve the desired shape and regularly produced fries that were too thin or too short.
Another issue I hit when using the MultiQuick 9 was food getting stuck above the blade while using the food processor attachment. Even when using the food pusher, the blades sometimes didn’t catch all of the ingredients, meaning bits of unprocessed food were left behind on top of the blade disc. It isn’t entirely unusual for a blade attachment not to catch every bit of food, but it’s disappointing considering how well many of the other attachments work.
My final niggle was with the whisk attachment. It does the job but it’s a tad flimsy and struggled with larger volumes (800ml to 1l) of batter and cream, taking what felt like a lifetime to get it to the desired consistency.
READ NEXT: Our pick of the best electric hand whisks
Braun MultiQuick 9 Hand Blender MQ9187XLI review: Should you buy it?
Despite those two missteps, the MultiQuick 9 MQ9187XLI is an impressive product. It allows you to undertake an astonishing array of prep tasks, from making hummus to julienning vegetables – and it does it really well.
Moreover, the multipurpose handle, which lets you seamlessly move from blending to food processing, is a pleasure to use and elegantly designed. At its core, it’s a fantastic blender too: quick, powerful and it makes light work of tough ingredients.
Those additional attachments do bump the price up quite a bit, though. So, if you’re not entirely convinced you need a hand blender that does everything, it might be more economical to consider one of the more affordable MultiQuick 9 models such as the MQ9135XI or the MQ9138XI.