Overview
If you’re like me you thought of Kenwood as a Ham Radio maker and hi-fi vendor, making radios and tape decks for car and home in the 80s. How odd that they also have an entire kitchen line in the UK and Europe. WAIT! There are two Kenwoods. Thanks to this article at Core 77: The two Kenwoods I learned that Kenwood the Electronics company was the brand name of Kasuga Radio Company from Japan. While Kenwood the kitchen equipment company was started by Mr. Kenneth Woods of the United Kingdom in 1947. You can learn more about Kenwood the mixing company here: The History of Kenwood Mixers. Both of these companies have been bought out, Kenwood the Mixer company is now owned by Delonghi of Italy, and the Radio company is now run by Japanese mega-corp Matsushita.
History aside I learned about this particular mixer from the guys on Sorted Food, who did a video about it mainly testing the mixer (That video is here: Sorted Food Reviews the Kenwood Chef XL ). In the video they primarily tested the mixer, and they paid (allegedly) the full price of 1500 pounds, mine was a bit under 1,000 Euros. While they guys showed the many accessories (Mixer of course, but also blender, food processor, induction burner built it with the ability to Sous vide, and a scale) they didn’t test anything but the mixer and it’s ability to heat and mix at the same time (useful for puddings, cooked dough (think shoux dough), and soup). When I was pondering the purchase, I couldn’t find many videos that put all of these things thru their paces.
So here we are, at the Retro Future Electrics European Headquarters, we decided to purchase the unit and give it a try. We compare the blender to a BlendTec home blender, the Food Processor to a beefy Breville (Sage in Europe) stand alone food processor, and Sous Vide a steak in comparison with an Instant Pot with Sous vide function.
Mixing
We spent the least amount of time on mixing, as this seems to be well covered in other videos and reviews. Bottom Line: The Kenwood mixes great, whips eggs and cream as expected and will outclass lesser mixers in heavy dough.
We’ve had a kitchen aid mixer since the late 1990s, we’ve burnt thru two of them (they don’t make them like they used to). But on the whole they mix well. The Kenwood promises a 1500Watt motor (More than quadruple our Kitchen aid). And it has no warning about mixing time (Modern KitchenAids say they should mix only for a combination of 4 to 6 minutes, which was not nearly long enough for most dough tasks. Apparently in 2024 they removed this restriction on bread dough). I should say we burnt out a kitchen aid on the America’s Test Kitchen Bagel Dough recipe which they have now changed to use a food processor. So hard to tell who was wrong. My guess is that ATK had the most powerful Kitchen Aids in their kitchen, while folks at home more often had the lower end.
Blending
We have had a BlendTec blender since before the mid 2000’s “Will it Blend” was one of the most popular videos/memes of the era (The even blended a new iPhone). While it was crazy to watch this guy blend a thousand dollar phone, it got the point home that these were pro blenders. Baskin Robbins uses blendtec for their milkshakes. At the time we were living on a farm on the Big Island of Hawaii, and had lots of fresh fruit to make smoothies with. It was a huge step up (and it breaks my retro heart) from our Oster blender of the 1980s. While the Oster would leave big chunks of ice, or just straight freeze on somethings. The BlendTec seemed to barrel thru anything we threw at it. This was largely because of its powerful 1500 watt motor with better cooling and super strong blades. I wasn’t able to find the exact wattage of the Oster blender but it seems the 700Watt range was typical. The Blendtec wasn’t cheap, costing around US$400 at the time (Today they go for around $375 here: Blendtec Blender on Amazon , They list it as the same model although it looks a littler different. )
The Kenwood has a powerful motor (also in the 1500 Watt range) and the cooling and gearing to go with it. One thing it doesn’t have is the clever programs of the BelndTec. While the Kenwood supports an app and some pre-programed recipes, none of them seemed to be for the blender. The blender is an expensive add on to the lower end machines (costing over $100), so my guess is they don’t sell many of them outside this all-in-one unit. We made a video for this one available on our Retro Future Electrics Youtube channel. The bottom line is it did pretty good, I would say 95% as good as the blendtec, and you can get that extra 5% by fiddling with the speed and the “paddle” (which the Blendtec doesn’t have).
Conclusion
We made Pina Colada in both the Blendtec and the Kenwood. Both promptly cut thru the ice and made a good slushy consistency, not the “small pieces of ice in a drink” consistency of our old 1980s Oster. I would say that the Kenwood replaces the Blendtec for 95% of uses, only when you need that super high speed “heating” function of the Blendtec, as the Kenwood doesn’t quite get fast enough. It did well on both our Pina coladas and a. chunky vegan queso.
Food Processor
More coming Oct 2025, but the bottom line is the Food Processor has processed everything we’ve thrown at it. Shredded cheese and courgette (zucchini), chopped mushrooms for the risotto. The chute and bowl are smaller than our old standalone, but this was less of a detriment than you’d think. Honestly we’re using it more as the smaller bowl and tools all go in the dishwasher easily.
Sous Vide
The induction hob in the Kenwood Chef XL promises to be able to do Sous vide, you can set in single digit increments from 20°C to 180°C (68°F to 356°F). To give this a try we got a 2 pack of steaks and tried on in the Kenwood and one in the instant pot.
We set the temp to 51°C (123.8°F) in both cases and let them go for 4 hours. This should be enough to make the meat tender and medium after the quick grill at the end. I checked on them both regularly, I’ve done sous vide in the Instant Pot for years so I know those results come out well. The Kenwood did really well. The temp of the water was right around 51°C (you can see in the photo 124°F) Every time I checked it was within a degree.
Sous Vide Conclusion
Success. The Kenwood did a good job at Sous Vide. My only complaint was a little more heat leaked out into the air vs the well insulated Instant Pot. But not as much I would expect, I guess Stainless steel really isn’t that good at transferring heat. Of course I still use the instant pot for pressure cooking, but I’ll now need to try the Kenwood for yogurt and slow cooking. The Kenwood even has a stir and slow cook mode, which might be quite good for soups and stews.
Induction Cooking/Steaming
The Kitchen Machine includes an induction hob. I wasn’t able to determine the exact wattage. More review is coming (should be up by October 2025) but the short is that it works fine. I did a test boiling 2 liters of water and it took about the same time as my non-induction stovetop. This makes me think that it is in the 800watt range. It heats quickly for things like sweating or browning onions. So far we’ve made a tomato pasta sauce, lentil soup, and risotto. All three were successful, although the tomato sauce and lentil soup didn’t really have any benefit from the mixer. The risotto however did, we used the constant stir feature, and cooked it for about 30 minutes, only adding liquid a few times when all of the previous liquid was absorbed. I’ve made risotto manually before and stirring for 20-30 minutes constantly is a bit of a chore, the mixer left my hands free to do other thing.