Costing an eye-watering £1,350, the German-made Thermomix TM7 calls itself ‘the most advanced all-in-one kitchen system’ and does everything – from chopping and blending to steaming and kneading – with one sleek machine.
For your money, you get the machine itself, a stainless-steel mixing bowl with cover, knife, lid and cap, the steaming dish and tray, and a simmering basket, butterfly whisk and spatula.
Promising cheffy food, healthy cooking and less waste, it effectively replaces equipment such as your blender, food processor, steamer and slow cooker – saving on all-important counter space and the cost of buying six appliances separately – while weighing ingredients and heating up to 160°C.
The 10-inch touchscreen means it’s as intuitive as using your iPad and is seamlessly integrated with the Cookidoo app (a three-month free subscription is thrown in for good measure) to serve up more than 100,000 guided recipes.
So far, sounds promising. But what’s it actually like to build this fancy-schmancy piece of kit into your everyday cooking?
How I tested
Nicky Rampley-Clarke/The Standard
The all-in-one kitchen appliance is marketed as your very own sous chef. To find out if I think it’s worth the price tag, I made everything from lemonade to a week’s worth of WFH lunches. I also boiled an egg and followed countless recipes. Considering everything from ease of use and versatility to style and efficiency, above all, I assessed the Thermomix TM7’s value for money.
Thermomix TM7
Thermomix
★★★☆☆
What we love: Compact, clever, excellent tutorials and instructions, intuitive design, easy to clean, and gives home cooks confidence with accurate and consistent results
Take note: Not everyone will get on board with a screen while cooking, and it takes away some of the mindfulness of cooking; also obscenely expensive
Firstly, you don’t buy the thing in-store or online. Instead, you book a live demo via their website and are connected with a local Thermomix Advisor who talks you through everything on a video call. Mine, Benji Nathan – a chef ambassador for the product – was friendly and helpful. If only I could have him in the kitchen when I’m crucifying another complicated recipe? After you’ve bought a Thermomix, you get onboarding support with advisors remaining available long after delivery (thank God, as boiling an egg the day after resulted in spilling a whole bowl of water onto my countertop after I struggled to connect two pieces of hardware).
A quick lemonade was the first thing I did with a simple method I found using the recipes function after a quick search. Water, sugar and lemons – thrown straight into the bowl, skin and all – were transformed in under 60 seconds into a bittersweet concoction that wasn’t half-bad. Apparently, you can use the Thermomix as a replacement for your kettle, too – it takes a little while to heat up, but it does the job.
Which brings me to the second test: boiling the perfect soft-to-medium boiled egg. Gooey enough for soldiers, firm enough for a spoon. In addition to step-by-step cooking, there are also manual functions, including an egg boiler. My desired result? 11 minutes, apparently.
The recipe tells the machine what to do at every step, from chopping and sautéing to cooking and blending
Nicky Rampley-Clarke/The Standard
Once the spillage was cleaned and the bowl connected to the base properly (the sliding lock was the key!), it was near-as-damn-it perfect. But then again, is boiling an egg in a saucepan that difficult in the first place? I did question whether I needed to be grappling with hardware and technology so much for such a simple task.
The third, and toughest test, was a complete recipe. Telling you what to do, when to do it, and automatically setting the time and temperature for you, it couldn’t be easier. You need to buy extra add-ons, like the cutter, sensor and peeler, separately, so I went with something easy: a creamy tomato soup.
It meant I could trial the whizzy machine’s core functions while batch-cooking a week’s worth of WFH lunches in the process. Win-win, right? Taking half an hour, and using a lot of ingredients I already had in the fridge and store cupboard, I simply loaded up the mixing bowl with the items in the order the recipe told me, the base of the machine weighing everything as I went. Then the recipe told the machine what to do at every step – chopping, sautéing, cooking and blending – to create a smooth, tasty soup.
Is the Thermomix TM7 worth it?
There’s no denying that the Thermomix TM7 is a clever and compact thing, given how many appliances it means you don’t need, and it certainly has a cult following. The expert demo and onboarding process were second-to-none and felt personal and genuinely helpful. I love how intuitive the machine is to use in terms of the tech – it’s definitely taken a leaf out of Apple’s book – while the interface is made from hardwearing ceramic so it’s pretty much crack-resistant and can be wiped down after a spillage.
And what about usage? For baking, where I’m the first to admit that I fall short as it’s more scientific than savoury cooking, I can see how the machine would give me confidence in accurate and consistent results.
I did struggle a little with the hardware – but I do think that’s because I’m not practical, even when I know everything has been designed cleverly by German makers. When it comes to the tech, I look forward to getting away from a screen at the end of the day and focusing on something mindless like slicing onions or stirring risotto. It’s joyful and intentional.
Recipe-wise, I’m also led by gut instinct rather than precise measurements, at least with savoury food. All of which leads me to wonder if it’s better suited to someone who loves meal-planning but doesn’t love manually preparing and cooking ingredients. Whether the Thermomix TM7 is worth the money or not all comes down to what kind of cook you are and what you get out of it.
Why trust me?
As a freelance editor with bylines in Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, The Mail, Forbes, Livingetc, House Beautiful and, of course, The Standard, Nicky is an expert on all things lifestyle. He also works with some of the biggest brands on the high street to advise and create content, so he understands products, what goes into making them and how they perform. In particular, he’s a keen home cook – so he demands a lot from kitchen equipment.