My trusty Kitchenaid 7-cup food processor (KFP0710, I think) bit the dust (specifically, an unnamed person at my house would grow frustrated with the interlock mechanism and force things, which broke it).
I now see that the model I had is pretty hard to find, and I was thinking of upgrading to a larger 9-cup model anyway to better handle making pizza dough (the 7-cup one struggled a bit).
Unfortunately, the new Kitchenaid designs leave a lot to be desired. The handles stick out the side, increasing its footprint on the counter from a width perspective, and the blades spin up slowly, even on the pulse setting, which is just plain stupid.
I don’t really want to spend $200 + on a food processor if one for 50 - 75 will take care of most of my needs (including pizza dough, making streussel, occasional cheese shredding, very infrequent slicing) without doign stuff poor quality processors are known for, including throwing all the stuff to the side and then pureeing 10% of your food instead of evenly chopping, or leaving a bunch of stuff unsliced and rattling around when using the slicing attachment.
Well, I bought this one for my son, but they almost never cook, so I don’t know how it’s worked out for them. Most of the others were too much money to spend on people that don’t cook, or had more bad reviews than I liked.
I’m gonna be that guy. We went through three Crappy $80 food processors. We’re currently still using the $225 Cuisinart. I shoulda known when the little button spacer on the Oster went away and they sent us a whole new Food Processor instead of the part.
I love it. Haven’t done dough in it, though. I’ve had it for several years - maybe 15? I don’t know for sure, but I got it when I first got my husband. I’ve never had a problem with it.
You are not going to get a $50 machine that has to work hard mechanically that will compare in useability and endurance to the same type of machine that costs 3-4 times as much. There will be no comparison.
That’s my experience exactly: several terrible cheap food processors that made messes, didn’t work well, were louder than a jet engine, and broke, until my dad got me a Cuisinart for Christmas. It hums along quietly and works beautifully.
A gentle suggestion: if you make sure everyone at your house has a name, it’ll be easier to figure out who’s at fault for things like this.
Thanks everyone. I am going to look into one of the cuisinarts. I am leery of buying a Braun because of 3 things: Some reviews say it does not get food at the very edges well, you seem to need a different attachment for each thing you want to do, and it is also not currently being produced here in the USA, they are just selling their remaining stock.
It’s a beast. And when the time comes the polycarb bowl cracks, I’ll replace the damn bowl, like I should have 5 or 6 years ago when I deviated from the path. (This replacement bowl is $75 and a whole brand new Oster is $65!)
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