Ankarsrum Food Processor/Vegetable Cutter

I use these weekly for shredding cheese. It's perfect for coleslaw. I love these attachments.

First, the sharpness of the slicer and graters I've used has been great so far. The sharply cut coarsely grated potatoes made a great rustic version of potatoes Anna (one big thick cake) and little one-serving hash browns. Note, though, that there's only one slicer and it slices very thinly. The cucumbers and potatoes seemed to be about 1 mm thick, just how I like B&B pickles but too thin for pan-frying potatoes. The large feed tube takes a whole smallish potato or half a big one. Unfortunately, the good part pretty much stops there.

The instructions are so sketchy as to be useless. The plastic part that holds the cones is actually in three parts, flanged as if to be taken apart or the angle adjusted --as you'll find out when trying to wrestle the thing onto the mixer and get the pieces lined up so the thing works. As with the meat grinder/mincer, a shallow groove has to fit all the way down onto a shallow flange on the mixer's main drive. The part that has to fit is plastic like the rest, and it's very tight and very recalcitrant. Scroll down to the part where I try to get the plastic housing on and off after it sat for a couple weeks!

There are some real problems with the design and construction. First, anything going into the cones stays in the cones, from cucumbers to (half-frozen) cheese, no matter what the speed. As the speeds for slicing and grating are slow and the sharp blades are on the outside, it was possible to coax cucumber slices out with the cone turning, though I could almost hear the screams of "No! No! Unsafe!." The cheddar and Jarlsberg cheese just stuck, especially the slices. The only way to get them out was to take the cones out (this can be done without turning the mixer upright again) and shake and tap the cones on the receiving surface (a flexible cutting board/sheet in my case).

Just the same, I was able to slice and grate a two-pound block of cheddar quite quickly, slice a big batch of cucumbers for bread and butter pickles in no time, and grate and julienne (one of the additional cones) big batches of potatoes almost painlessly, with only the tiniest bit left on the outside of the cone. The related blades and graters of the Cuisinart leave big pieces.

But then, after hand-washing the plastic parts with mild detergent, air-drying in the dish drainer, and not using the accessory for about two weeks, I could barely get it onto the mixer -- and the middle part came off the bottom ring, spitting out a little piece of plastic from one of the flanges in the process. I took it off, polished both the mixer ring and the plastic part, tried againl... and again... and again... a coating of ultra-thin camellia seed oil didn't help. When I finally got the bottom part seated and the two upper pieces put together again with everything facing the right way, (not as obvious as you might think), sliced my cucumbers, and tried to take the accessory off the mixer, I had to pry between the bottom of the plastic ring and the mixer, with great trepidation. Both survived with no visible marks or damage but I don't have a lot of confidence about the next time.

I don't know if there's a fix -- possibly the plastic will wear a little, or a soak in really hot tap water might open it a bit.

As I said, despite all this, I'm happy to have the attachment. I just hope that bottom ring stays in one piece! And that when it breaks I don't have to replace the whole plastic housing...

I love the way the Ankarsrum has a continuous flow when shredding vegetables and I don’t have to stop to empty out a processor! So excited to get cooking in the new mixer also.

This machine makes baking so much easier. I am in my eighties with arthritic hands. Ankarsrum creams butter and sugar beautifully. It cuts lard into flour in no time for biscuits and pie crust.