Lakeland Mini 1.8l Multi Cooker review: Small but mighty

Multi cookers might have fallen out of fashion in recent years but they’re still an incredibly useful space-saving tool. That’s very much the case with Lakeland’s own-brand Mini Multi Cooker, which at first glance, doesn’t look like anything special.

Its funky, retro design might not encourage you to give it pride of place on your kitchen counter but that’s sort of missing the point with this cooker. It offers convenience above all else and what it can do, it does very well. In particular, where larger cookers struggle with individual portions, often overcooking them, the Lakeland Mini is perfectly cut out for putting together small meals.

Lakeland Mini 1.8l Multi Cooker review: What you need to know

The Lakeland Mini Multi Cooker is a micro, stripped-back version of the brand’s now-retired 5L multi-cooker. From the cooker’s front display, you can choose from eight modes that allow you to prepare a variety of meals. These include yoghurt, oatmeal, quinoa and cake, along with slow cooking and three modes for rice: white rice, brown rice and quick-cook white rice. Last but not least, there’s an automatic keep-warm function, so food doesn’t go cold if cooking finishes when you’re out.

This version is designed to fit into smaller kitchens and households and although it’s advertised as having a 1.8l capacity, in reality it’ll cook up to 1.4l, making it perfect for meals that feed one to three people.

It measures 23.5 x 28 x 20cm (WDH) and weighs just 2.4kg, making it suitable for the smallest of kitchens. Unfortunately, because it is so small there’s no steaming basket included, which is a pain if you were hoping to steam some veggies alongside your rice.

Lakeland Mini 1.8l Multi Cooker review: Price and competition

At £50, this multi cooker is at the cheaper end of the price scale but that doesn’t mean it can’t do great things. It doesn’t have the range of modes you find on other multi cookers such as Tefal’s mighty 45-in-1 cooker, but it’s almost half the price and has most of the functions you’ll likely need from day to day.

If you don’t mind going a little bigger, the Tefal 8-in-1 multi cooker is another decent budget option with a more family-friendly working capacity of 2L. It is bulkier and heavier, though.

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Lakeland Mini 1.8l Multi Cooker review: Features and design

Before you’ve even plugged it in and turned it on, the first thing that stands out about the Lakeland Mini Multi Cooker is its sturdy carry handle. Along with its low weight of just 2.4kg, this makes it easy to move around, which is great if you want to stash it away in the cupboard between uses.

In fact, it’s small enough that you can even carry it in a large backpack, a feature I took advantage of when I moved house recently. The short, 95cm power cord might pose a slight problem for kitchens without many sockets, though.

Inside, the Mini Multi Cooker has a good quality, non-stick inner bowl and a detachable inner lid that helps to keep steam and heat inside the pot. Frustratingly, there are no heat-insulated handles on the sides, which makes lifting the hot bowl out of the main receptacle rather tricky – oven mitts or a tea towel are an absolute necessity.

These removable parts aren’t dishwasher-safe, either, but they’re so easy to clean that it’s not much of a problem. Only the inner lid’s rubber rim required a bit more scrubbing than you might expect after I’d been cooking strong-coloured curries and sauces.

The Lakeland Mini is incredibly simple to use to the point that you can pretty much plug it in and go. Pressing the Menu button on its front panel repeatedly lets you jump between the various cooking modes, while the other buttons are all pretty self-explanatory: Keep warm, Start and Off/Cancel.

One of the main omissions on the Lakeland Mini is the option to set a specific temperature for slow cooking. That’s hardly surprising at this price, but you can at least set the amount of time you want the slow cooker mode to run for – up to eight hours – which is handy if you want to cook a stew overnight or while you’re out at work.

Lakeland Mini 1.8l Multi Cooker review: Performance

The Lakeland Mini’s user manual says it will cook one cup of regular white rice in 25 minutes using the white-rice mode and 15 minutes when using the quick-cook function. In reality, I found the latter mode a little slower, cooking one cup in 18 minutes and two cups in just under 30. Annoyingly, there’s no countdown timer until the last six minutes of cooking on quick cook mode and the last 12 minutes on white rice mode.

Otherwise, though, performance is impressive. The cooker adjusts the cooking temperature and time automatically, according to the weight and type of rice in the pot and rice comes out fluffy with clearly defined grains and adequate bite every time.

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Indeed, there was little difference between the consistency of the rice when compared with rice from the far pricier Yum Asia Bamboo Induction rice cooker, although the Mini Multi Cooker sometimes produced slightly softer grains that stuck together more easily. Unless you have particularly high standards, though, it’s a subtle enough difference that you’re unlikely to notice. One thing I did note was that there was some steam escaping during cooking but this didn’t seem to affect the end product.

The default timer for the Lakeland Mini’s slow-cooking mode is four hours, in which time the multi cooker produced a flavourful stew with tender meat and soft veggies. It would be helpful if the Mini Multi Cooker came with a full recipe book, as most slow cookers come with full recipe booklets, optimised for the specific cooker. Furthermore, many online recipes only cater to larger capacity appliances. This means you could end up having to do some tricky maths to scale down recipes, turning what should be a fuss-free experience into a more complicated one.

For cake baking, the booklet advises using a pre-made cake mix for quick cakes as well as greasing the sides to ensure there’s no sticking. It’s important to note that when baking cakes in the multi cooker, you’re not slow cooking. It’s simply an alternative baking method and probably most useful if you don’t have any cake-making accessories. When I tested this mode the cake mix had cooked through completely within forty minutes and, if anything, could have used a little less baking time.

Lakeland Mini 1.8l Multi Cooker review: Verdict

Overall, the Lakeland Mini is an impressive if somewhat basic all-in-one cooker. It has its flaws but it more than makes up for these with how good a job it does.

Sure, it can’t tackle the same range of dishes as more expensive cookers, but crucially it’s great for cooking smaller portions for one or two people, which larger appliances can struggle with. In short, the Lakeland Mini is the perfect appliance for those who don’t have the space for – or simply don’t want – multiple different appliances and baking accessories in their kitchen.

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