In this video, I'm reviewing the Cuisinart Elemental 11 cup
food processor with dicing kit and adjustable slicing disc.
So let's get started.
The Cuisinart food processor may look a little overwhelming
thanks to the size and the number of boxes it comes with.
To start with, instead of trying to pull out the items from the box it's easier to
either lay it down on your counter or floor and then slide everything out.
It comes with the three-part pusher the small pusher has a little drizzle hole
and this sits inside the medium size pusher and these both sit inside the large pusher.
And if you just slide the large pusher in you'll see the metal locking mechanism here
and if you pull out this gray piece here, it's a lock. So this will lock in both the
large and the medium tubes. Let's pop in the small tube and then to lock this piece in we
need to twist it counterclockwise and now it's nice and secure. When you unlock it, push in
this gray piece pull out the medium or the large tube and the small tube will still be locked in.
It comes with a large chopping and mixing blade. I'll put a few pieces of toasted bread in here.
And I'll use the pulse button first just to chop it up roughly
and then press the high button to run it continuously and prepare some breadcrumbs.
The chopping blade features the BladeLock system so if you turn
it upside down the blade should stay in place and not fall out
and here is the breadcrumbs which came out wonderful after two minutes of processing on high.
Insert the stem adapter when you're using the reversible shredding disc.
The reversible shredding disc has markings for both the coarse and fine shredding.
For the type of shred you want, face the disc upwards
attach the work bowl lid and I'll get the motor running first on high setting
before I add a couple of blocks of mozzarella cheese which I'm going to fine shred first.
And then I'll test out the coarse side for cheddar cheese and both of these
are straight out of the fridge they have been chilled in the fridge only not in the freezer.
Okay taking a look. Removing the work bowl lid shows that there's no pieces left on
top of the shredding disc for either the mozzarella or the cheddar cheese.
But I am very impressed with the underside of the lid which has very little cheese stuck under it
for both types of cheeses that I just processed. On other food processors, I've always had clumps
of cheese stuck all the way around the lid so this is definitely a big score for me.
and let's take a look at this fine shred of mozzarella which came out beautiful. Nice
and consistent and the coarse shred also for the cheddar cheese came out beautiful, really nice.
Both the mozzarella and the cheddar processed beautifully
with very little chunks in the work bowl.
And here it is again, the mozzarella fine shred and the cheddar coarse shred.
Inserting the stem adapter first, I'm going to place the dicing grid on top with the grid towards
the handle and the control buttons. Then place the dicing disc on top. Secure the work bowl lid
and you can use the large feed tube for slightly bigger ingredients. Pull out the
gray lock to lock it in and I'll put in half an onion because I can't fit a whole round one in.
Also half a bell pepper.
I'll use the wide mouth feed tube for larger foods like potato,
but it's still a little bit too big so I'll still need to cut it in half.
The wide feed tube has a safety feature built into
it, it seems because the motor wouldn't start when I placed the potato in it
then once I repositioned it a bit closer towards the edge of the tube the machine started running.
So if you do find that the machine's not running or starting just reposition your food in the tube.
Okay, taking a look at the process. The onion left a couple of pieces
on the slicing disc and then they'll always be food on the grid. Same with the bell pepper.
And then the potato for sure will most likely have larger pieces stuck
just because the skin is a lot harder. So you'll just need to
use the cleaning tool to push through any food that's stuck in the grid.
Depending on how hard or soft the food is it should be easy enough to do.
The onion I had no problem pushing through as I did with the bell pepper
but the potato couldn't be pushed through so it needed a little bit more effort to clean it
out.
It was pretty jammed in the grid so I had to use a bit more effort to clean that out.
But take a look at how well it diced these vegetables. The onion, beautiful.
The bell pepper as well came out really nice.
And the potato again they all came out really nice. Wonderful, nice, and uniformed cubes and it
was so easy and very quick to do. Definitely saves a lot of time if you have a lot of chopping to do
and for the leftover pieces that I couldn't push through I just chopped them up by hand.
The dicing accessories are kept in the storage case that's included in the box
depending on where you buy it from you may or may not have this particular storage case.
So we can store the dicing cleaning tool in there by laying it down like so
then you'll add in the dicing grid on top of that and then place the dicing disc on top.
Lastly, the cover which is also the flat work bowl cover.
Unfortunately, it doesn't store either the slicing disc or the reversible shredding disc.
I can only store either the stem adapter or the chopping blade inside the work bowl
but I'll have to find somewhere else to store the other three parts which is a little disappointing.
You can also use the cover for the dicing kit as a cover for the work
bowl when you're processing food. It also has a little small cup with a drizzle hole.
Turning it counterclockwise will lock it into place.
Moving on to the adjustable slicing disc and underneath
this, you'll see the rotating hub to set the level of thickness
from zero to seven. Just a side note when you are rotating to the highest level it does get
a little awkward to grasp the top of the hub here because the blade is being pushed up.
Choose your size and then place the disc on top of the stem adapter.
I'll slice up some baby cucumbers starting with size zero and just to show you sometimes you
will get some pieces left on top of the disc and that is normal with most food processors.
The cucumber sliced really well other than the ends because they were rounded tips. You
can trim them off if you want and I did slices in every size just to show you.
And here they are starting from
zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and these came out really nice.
Again, it's a really good feature I think it saves a lot of time
and they came out really nice, and even again.
So overall the Cuisinart Elemental Food Processor works really well for chopping, shredding, dicing,
and the adjustable slicing disc is a great option letting you slice your foods in different sizes
and lets you get a little more creative with your meals.
The trick is to pack the food items into the tube
and you should get some nice even slices and diced food.
I did feel the need to apply a lot of pressure to the control buttons because they tended to stick
quite a lot of the time. And I'm just wondering if
this may cause the plastic coating on the buttons to wear out quickly.
The 550-watt motor base is lighter and smaller in size when compared to the Kitchenaid
13 cup food processor that I reviewed recently but I'm also not sure if that compromises the
quality of the motor. The Cuisinart parts definitely has a cheaper feel to the plastic used
and I am worried if the motor will hold up on it because
I can already see, it's starting to disintegrate here with these little bits chipping away
on both the base of the work bowl and also the motor shaft which I'll show you here.
So that's just one thing I'm not a little
confident on here with the Cuisinart food processor.
This is my first Cuisinart food processor that I've owned so I'm going to see how it's holding
up. The Cuisinart though is almost half the price of the Kitchenaid 13 cup food processor and
unfortunately this shows in the quality of the material used. But in my opinion,
I do feel that the Cuisinart did do a much better job processing the food, meaning most of the food
ended up in the work bowl rather than getting stuck under the lid or on top of the discs.
The size and the weight of the motor base does make it ideal to store away in the cupboards but
the fact that there is a separate accessory kit for storing only the dicing kit parts
but not the shredding or the slicing disc that's a huge disappointment. The dicing kit itself
is around 10 inches big and seven and a half inches high so it's quite bulky to store away
and then we have the two discs that have no protective covers. I mean, what's that all about?
So in addition to the storage case, I also need to find a safe place to store the unprotected discs.
So this is my review of the Cuisinart elemental
11 cup food processor with dicing kit and adjustable slicing disc.
If you guys found this video useful do please give it a Like and if there is any
questions or comments do leave them below and I hope to catch you in my next video.