Bellini unites the kitchen into one powerful machine

Combine a powerful heating element with a blender, and add in some clever accessories for the sake of multitasking and you'd get the all-in-one small appliance called the Bellini Kitchen Master. Boasting a grocery list of capabilities including chopping, kneading, blending, cooking and steaming, the Kitchen Master hopes to provide everything you need to prepare a meal or craft a delicate sauce with ease. Using the Kitchen Master will definitely help keep the dishes to a minimum, and add a bit of resourcefulness to your cooking if you can make sense of its plethora of pieces.

If you're looking to consolidate on your countertop, you can order the Bellini Kitchen Master from the appliance company Cedarlane Culinary via its website now for $600. You can also find it at Bed, Bath & Beyond and WayFair. In Australia, you can purchase the original 500W model (as opposed to the 800W US version) from Target Australia for AU$399. The package includes a booklet with more than 70 recipes and an external scale to go along with the blades, baskets and bowls you'll need for its many functions. The Bellini Kitchen Master is not yet available in the UK, but the price translates roughly to £384.

A complex toolkit

Despite a clear-looking LCD, properly using all of the capabilities of the Kitchen Master might be a tall task. Together, all of the parts look confusing, and indeed, on Cedarlane's website, it recommends gaining familiarity with the functions of the machine before experimenting with your own recipes. You can use the instructions that come with their recipes to do that, and the complexity might be a fair trade-off for capability once you're up and running.

Following those included recipes seems simple enough, but complex dishes still require several steps. As a struggling cook myself, I hoped the Bellini might be able to do all of the work for me. That doesn't seem quite true, but if it works as promised, I might be able to cook more involved dishes than I could otherwise.

Each step involves setting the time, temperature, and occasionally scraping the sides of the bowl and adding an extra ingredient. The convenience comes from precise temperature control and letting the machine do the delicate mixing. For a more experienced cook, the convenience will mainly arise from having to deal with fewer dishes.

Alternatives

A powerful blender can take care of most if not all of the non-heat-based tasks the Bellini says it can tackle. Compared with the more capable models we tested, such as the 1500W Ninja Ultima and the 1440W Vitamix 7500 , the 800W of the Bellini's blender looks pedestrian.

The Bellini also isn't the first machine to try to squeeze an entire kitchen's worth of capability into one package. Thermomix might be the most well known brand, but models cost $2,000 and up. Bellini has the specs to compete, matching its competitor's 1,000W heating power, and besting the Thermomix's 500W blender with an 800W motor.

The Thermomix advantage comes from simplified controls and automated recipe assistance via scannable bar codes. The upcoming Taurus MyCook Touch (no pricing yet) will go even further toward technological convenience by adding Wi-Fi capabilities and recipes to a similar multifunction package.

The Bellini Kitchen Master comes at a steep discount over the Thermomix while offering similar capabilities. The latter might be easier to use, but I doubt it could be so much easier as to justify the extra $1,000 you'd spend to obtain it. The Taurus will make for interesting competition if the Wi-Fi works well and the price ends up being reasonable.

Outlook

Cooking an entire meal with a single appliance has plenty of appeal. I'm not convinced the Bellini Kitchen Master will make the process that much less complex, but if it works well, it'll certainly add convenience. By offering all of the functions needed to take care of the finesse parts of complex dishes, it should save time and energy for the pros and give beginners like myself a fighting chance at crafting delicious entrees.