Thermomix TM7 Review

Introduction

The Thermomix TM6 is one of the best products that I’ve ever reviewed. A powerhouse of a kitchen gadget, it can cook, chop, blend and more, making the difficult easy. Based on how good the original was, I was excited to get my hands on the new model, the Thermomix TM7.

Although it does much of the same things as the older model, the Thermomix TM7 has a radical redesign, with some good changes and some a touch baffling. But, despite any minor flaws, the TM7 is both an incredible bit of engineering, and an incredible tool whether you use it in manual mode or follow the guided cooking.

Design and Features

• Large touchscreen
• New insulated mixing bowl
• New cooking modes

If you’ve not come across the Thermomix before, you’re missing out. This incredible tool can be used manually or with guided recipes to chop, blend, mix, steam, cook and more, all-in-one. 

The Thermomix TM7 takes the features of the previous model, adds some new modes and gives it all in a radically different design.

With the Thermomix TM6 (and previous models), the motor base was huge, with curved sides that went up around the mixing bowl. It was a solid bit of kit that was hard to store, so I’m pleased to see the redesigned TM7.

This has a flat motor base, which ditches the manual controls for a 10-inch touchscreen that dominates the front. That’s a good choice, as it makes the TM7 feel like a much more modern appliance.

There’s another benefit of the base, besides being easier to store: it’s much easier to clean. The old motor base used to accumulate dirt in the arms, particularly, but the largely flat TM7 motor base is much easier to wipe clean.

The old arms were there to lock the lid of the 2.2-litre mixing bowl into place, for safety. With the TM7, the mixing bowl has the same 2.2-litre capacity for compatibility, but its locking mechanism is integrated into the bowl itself, as part of the new external insulation.

With insulation, the bowl stays warmer for longer, but the outside is safe to touch. It does mean a bit more washing up, as the outer insulation sheath slides off for cleaning. Overall, the improvements are worth it.

There’s a change to the lid on the TM7. With the TM6, the lid had a hole in the middle, which could be left open, and the spatula pushed through to keep ingredients off the sides of the bowl. The TM7’s lid has a vent, but no hole, so you can’t push the spatula through. That seems like an odd decision to me.

In the box, you get the same accessories as with the previous model, with a blade at the bottom that acts as a chopper, mixer and dough hook, plus a clip-on whisk attachment. There’s also a simmering basket and a larger Varoma (steamer). 

With 45% more steaming capacity, the new Varoma lets you cook a lot more food. That’s a handy upgrade; I found the old Varoma handy at Christmas for cooking veg, but had to cook in patches for large parties, while the new one works for big groups.

It’s good to see that the Thermomix TM7 is compatible with some of the old accessories, including the peeler attachment.

You can use the Thermomix TM7 in two ways: manual or guided cooking. Manually, you can select from the 20+ cooking modes, which include grating, peeling, thickening, chopping, dough, and rice cooker. For these modes, you can just select the time to run, speed to run the blades and, for some modes, the temperature and cooking time.

With the TM7, the browning mode (sauteing) is now available directly; with the TM6, this mode was only available via guided cooking. And, there are new modes.

Open cooking lets you cook with the lid off for recipes up to 100°C; is that often useful? Well, not really, and it’s not a mode that I need often.

Slow cook is a more useful, particularly as the Thermomix TM7 can cook with its blades turned off. Older models of the Thermomix required the blades to run at a slow speed, which would cause problems unless you had the blade covers. For example, I once slow cooked a chicken curry, but the constant blade movement ended up shredding the chicken over time.

For most people, the Thermomix TM7 will be used with guided cooking using the Cookidoo subscription app. This has thousands of recipes that take you step-by-step through making dishes, ranging from the simple (a crumble, for example) to what would be fiendishly difficult (hollandaise sauce, for example).

The new touchscreen makes the recipes easier to follow and has some nice touches. For example, when asked to weigh out ingredients, the TM7 will automatically move on to the next step when the right amount has been added to the bowl.

Combined with the bigger interface and larger images, the TM7’s guided cooking mode is a lot easier to follow than the same mode on the TM6.

A second benefit is that you can sign into your Cookidoo account on the TM7 by using your phone and the Cookidoo app, so there’s no need to manually type in email addresses and passwords.

Cookidoo costs £50 per year, although you get a three-month trial with the TM7, so you can see if you like it. I think that the subscription is well worth it.

At the end of using it, the Thermomix TM7 has several self-cleaning modes. Add water, a drop of washing up liquid, select the right mode (dough, universal, and so on), and the Thermomix does a pretty good of cleaning itself up.

For a deeper clean, the blades, insulating exterior and bowl can be taken apart and hand-washed or put in a dishwasher.

Performance

• Incredible results
• Precision cooking
• Blades can get in the way

When the Thermomix TM7 is good, it’s really good. Core to its performance is its ability to heat to precise temperatures, which means you can use it for sous vide to cook meat and fish in sealed bags in perfectly-heated water. If you’ve not done it before, then try it: the result is perfectly cooked food that’s the same temperature all the way through, and just needs a quick sear to finish it off.

You can also see perfect temperatures at work when making something hard, such as honeycomb. Heating water, sugar and honey (or golden syrup), the Thermomix TM7 can make a perfect caramel that just needs bi-carbonate of soda to turn it into the honeycomb.

Sure, you can make honeycomb in pan, but getting the temperatures right is a tricky business.

I often use the Thermomix to make baguettes. It’s a simple recipe, but the TM7 does some extra steps, including heating the initial water and yeast combination to 37°C, before it prompts for flour and salt at the next stage. After a quick kneed, the dough is ready to proof, and after the requisite rising, rolling and rising, I’m always happy with the results.

This recipe does show a minor problem with the TM7, and previous Thermomix models: the low blade can get tangled with recipes, making it hard to get everything out. I usually find it’s best to release the blade with dough, and get all of the dough off before proving in a bowl in an oven.

It’s easy to adjust recipes, too. I made some seeded, multi-grain bread, adjusting the wholemeal recipe to suit my tastes, using extra virgin olive oil instead of butter. Self-shaped, the resulting bread was excellent with the Thermomix taking care of the difficult bits for me.

Then there are things like hollandaise sauce, which is difficult to get right in a pan. With the TM7 able to mix and heat to precise temperatures, it’s much easier to get impressive results.

There’s a lot of power in the TM7’s blades. For example, making a lemon drizzle cake, the TM7 took caster sugar and lemon peel and blended them into a soft paste that was more easily absorbed into the cake batter.

I also love the peeling attachment, particularly when dealing with something fiddly, such as new potatoes. Making an aloo gobi, for example, I could use the peeling mode to get my potatoes ready to cook; this is far easier than peeling them by hand.

The TM7 also has a brand-new motor, which is exceptionally quiet. In fact, when I first used the TM7 I wasn’t sure it was on, as it was so quiet. This is particularly noticeable in certain modes, such as the self-clean (very loud on the original) and dough mixing. At high speeds there can be quite a wobble to the machine, but it’s still much quieter than the original.

Using the TM7, I find that it’s best to use it for the more complicated parts of recipes, and I often find it easier to do side dishes normally. In some cases, you even get better results elsewhere. For example, with rice, although the TM7 can act as a rice cooker, I ended up with quite a bit of soft rice stuck to the bottom of the bowl, and a dedicated rice cooker did better.

Likewise, the whisk attachment works with egg whites for a meringue, but a KitchenAid mixer with a balloon whisk gets more air in.

Then, there are the extra modes. Browning is useful if the results, such as fried onions, are going to be incorporated into a later menu, such as a Thai green curry. If not, then a traditional frying pan is easier to use.

Should you buy it?

FAQs