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Sometimes a full-sized blender or food processor is overkill. For deck or patio gatherings within reach of an AC outlet, an immersion blender might be the better option. You immerse the cutting blades directly into the ingredients for summer soup, shakes, or smoothies, and the hand-held devices blend and purée small batches without messy cleanup.
We tested the six models in our Ratings by making soup and yogurt smoothies. The better models excelled at puréeing potatoes, carrots, and other soup ingredients and left the fewest fruit chunks behind in our yogurt test. For models with a chopper feature, we checked how well they grated cheese and chopped garlic, onion, and almonds. We also assessed each for convenience and easy handling.
One lesson we gleaned: Those brimming with accessories aren't necessarily the better buys. The Hamilton Beach 59765, for only $30, comes with a chopper and whisk like pricier models but was unimpressive throughout our tests. And while the Bamix Professional felt the most heavy-duty and comes with a wall rack plus specialty blades, it's pricey at $180 and didn't smoothly purée our soup ingredients.
We also found a couple of features we liked. One model, from Breville, has a plastic-tipped bottom ring the manufacturer says keeps the appliance from scratching the bottoms of pots. And all models but the Bamix have metal parts that detach for cleaning in a dishwasher.
—Ed Perratore
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