Smeg Blender BLF01 review

The BLF01 comes with a handful of recipes in the instruction manual, but I tested it with our standard smoothie recipe, which consists of two handfuls of kale, a chopped banana and half a cup of mixed frozen berries plus water. I used the preset smoothie mode, which speeds up halfway through, and the results were excellent. There were still a few pithy bits of the fruit leftover, but the kale had been completely shredded and the whole recipe was very smooth and easy to drink.

However, I also blended the same recipe in the Nutribullet, our current blender of choice, and the results were largely the same. The Nutribullet had marginally more fruit pith present, but considering the Nutribullet is almost half the price of the Smeg BLF01 and only has a 600W motor, there wasn’t as big a difference as I’d hoped.^ There’s a hole in the middle of the lid to slot in the BLF01’s ‘measuring cup’, but its lack of markings aren’t very practical for actually measuring with

Of course, the BLF01’s appeal comes from its larger, more flexible blending jug, as the Nutribullet only has a maximum capacity of 600ml. This not only allows you to blend more than double the amount of ingredients in the Smeg, but it also means you can add a greater variety of ingredients to your mixture. The BLF01 is also easier to clean, as the convex design of its removable blade makes them easier to get at with a washing up brush compared with the concave housing present on the Nutribullet. The rest of BLF01’s components are all dish-washer friendly, alternatively you can use the self-clean option. This involves putting warm water and some detergent into the blender jug itself and using the pulse option on speed 1 around ten times to do the cleaning for you. Then it’s just a matter of rinsing and drying each individual component.

If you’re an avid cocktail drinker (or like to present seafood on ice beds, yes I’m reaching with that one), the BLF01’s crushed ice mode is also an attractive option. It can handle multiple ice cubes with ease, turning them into something resembling fluffy, compacted snow in under a minute. When I tried it out for myself, the results ended up sticking to the outside of the jug, but it all fell out very easily once I’d turned the jug upside down and tapped out the contents into a bowl.^ The BLF01 is certainly very effective at crushing ice

The Smeg BLF01 Blender is an extremely capable machine. Its spacious jug offers plenty of room for large quantities of ingredients and its various modes and options give you a lot of choice for blending different types of recipes. Its wide range of colours also make a refreshing change from the swathes of black and silver blenders you’ll also find in this price range.

However, at £130, it’s quite expensive, and you can find similarly-sized blenders for a lot less. Likewise, its size won’t suit everyone. For lone blenders, the Nutribullet is a much better buy, as it delivers nigh-on identical results for roughly half the price. The Nutribullet is also more suitable for taking the results on the go (the BLF01 doesn’t come with any additional carry cups, for example) and its bundled recipe books gives you plenty of ideas for new recipes. However, the Smeg looks a lot better in my opinion, and for those that need a large, all-purpose blender that can cope with meals for the whole family, the Smeg BLF01 is still a great, if slightly pricey, choice.