If there’s anything I’ve taken a liking to more this year than ever before, it’s kitchen appliances. There’s always something brewing in my kitchen, so when the opportunity arose to try out a gadget from the iconic Australian brand, Breville (known as Sage in the U.K.), I jumped at the chance.
I’m no stranger to Breville’s extensive coffee machine line – a bucket list item for me is the Oracle Jet – and its range of air purifiers. However, I had yet to have a true hands-on experience with Breville’s impressive range of food processors, particularly the Paradice 9.
The Paradice 9 acts as a mid-range option in Breville’s food chopper lineup, costing a hefty $399 / £299 / AU$529, and a notable step down from its older sister, the Breville Paradice 16 at $699.95 / £579.95 / AU$899. Cost aside, the Paradice 9 has received glowing reviews, including Tom’s Guide’s 4.5 stars, as it is a beyond-capable processor and has a lifelong 30-year warranty on the heavy-duty induction motor. It’s also totally storage-friendly, using its own bowl as a home for its multiple attachments (unlike the 16’s two separate storage containers).
Speaking of attachments, included in the box is an adjustable slicing attachment, a dicing attachment, a dough blade, the ‘S’ chopping blade and a reversible shredding disc. It also comes with a wide chute and pusher, which act as a safety precaution to accidental blending, as you need to have the pusher in place to start the machine. But once locked and loaded, the Breville Paradice 9 can slice and dice in under 10 seconds… or so most reviews say.
To put all the attachments to the test, I challenged them with three core recipes: homemade nut butter, shredded cheddar cheese, and a pumpkin pie made from scratch.
But enough with the dillydallying – here’s how the Breville Paradice 9 fared in my recipe round-up!
Homemade Pumpkin Pie
As a staunch Halloween fan and PSL drinker, it was only fitting to use the Breville Paradice 9 to make a pumpkin pie. Canned pumpkin pie mix is synonymous with Thanksgiving in the U.S., but here in Australia, I needed to make it from scratch.
After purchasing the finest Kent pumpkin I could find, I got to prepping, starting by locking the dicing grid and blade attachment to the Paradice 9 bowl. Setting up the attachment was a little finicky, as you have to place the separate, sharp blade in the direction specified on the attachment. But after I figured it out, I was dicing pumpkin cubes in no time.
The finished pumpkin cubes were smaller than I’d hoped, but that’s expected with this machine due to the smaller dicing grid. But, this doesn’t discredit the machine’s ability to dice, as my whole pumpkin only took 5 minutes to blitz.
However, the processor’s performance was undermined by a frustrating design flaw: the dicing grid consistently trapped the last slice of pumpkin. I did use the provided pusher attachment to try to get it out, but found it was easier to push the remaining pieces out with a butter knife. After roasting the pieces for 45 minutes, I popped the ‘S’ blade onto the processor base to puree the pumpkin. Much like the dicing grid, it took less than 2 minutes to pulverize the pumpkin into a soup-like consistency, evenly thinning out chunks into a fine puree.
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Once the puree was done, it was onto doughing, using the pastel blue dough attachment. It was my first time making shortcrust pastry in a food processor, so I was rather skeptical about it. Typically, when making dough or pastry, I whip out my KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer and dough hook attachment, with dough drops forming within 10 minutes. But, in this case, the Paradice 9’s dough attachment and pulse button cut my usual time in half, making a perfectly shaggy, ready-to-knead dough in under 5 minutes.
For quickening the manual processes of chopping, blending, mixing and kneading, the Breville Paradice 9 was a worthy addition to an already labor-intensive recipe. I appreciated the wide feeding chute and bowl capacity, especially while pureeing over a kilo of roasted pumpkin, as I could do it all in one go.
A point of annoyance, though – cleaning the ‘S’ blade was often a challenge, as food residue tended to fuse it to the spindle, making it difficult to separate.
Recipe Verdict: Was using the Breville Paradice 9 in this recipe magical? No. Useful? Yes, but it didn’t bring about any new tricks that a lesser-priced food processor couldn’t also do. For the amount of money, it didn’t prove its worth for the basic functions alone. For this particular recipe, it did save me time and energy, but I still had to do some manual work to get the job (and the cleanup) done.
- Value for money score: 3 out of 5
Nut Butters
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Nut butters, particularly peanut butter, are a staple in our pantry, so making my own was right at the top of the agenda. For both recipes, I used store-bought roasted and salted nuts, though you could do the whole process at home with raw nuts if you prefer. But both recipes were simple enough, only needing two ingredients: nuts and oil.
First up was maple cashew butter, using a flavored bag of salted cashews. I poured the whole bag in and pulsed a few times, as per Breville’s instructions. After a rough paste started to form, I added two teaspoons of oil and processed for another minute until it formed a spread-like consistency.
Next was peanut butter – a hot commodity shared between my dog and my husband. Peanut butter was even easier than cashew, blending into a thick and creamy paste shortly after my initial pulsing was done. I added in one teaspoon of oil for good measure (though in future, I’d probably leave it out), and I had a delicious peanut spread ready for consuming.
Recipe Verdict: The Breville Paradice 9 wowed me in how speedy it was, and in both instances, I was pretty impressed with how my nut butters turned out. Suffice to say, I was also convinced that the induction motor was going to give out at any second, but it didn’t, and for that, I am grateful. Overall, the Paradice 9’s blitzing abilities had me almost change my own value proposition.
- Value for money score: 5 out of 5
Grated cheese
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Now, the true test in my eyes was seeing how the Breville Paradice 9 fared when grating cheese. I have had many issues with automatic graters in the past, including when using my KitchenAid shredder attachment, as more times than not, the cheese, no matter the hardness, would get stuck. And much to my surprise (not), cheese did get stuck in the Paradice 9.
But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Breville’s instructions say to freeze cheese for 45 minutes. I froze mine for a lot longer, keeping it in the freezer overnight, so it was firmer than required. Grating soft white cheeses, like mozzarella, is not recommended as per Breville’s manual and for most processors, as they tend to have a tendency of clogging shredding attachments.
Cutting the cheese into cubes, I fed the machine pieces through the wide chute, using the pusher as I went. Initially, the reversible shredding disc performed exceedingly well, leaving very few crumbs behind. By the time I was halfway through my block, my fears actualized, as noticeable cheese buildup started forming on the disc.
Much like the dicing grid, there’s always going to be some cheese left unshredded, regardless of what food processor you use. But to me, it was just another niggle that I wanted the Breville Paradice 9 to conquer, and it fell short of doing that.
Aside from that, the shredded cheese was evenly grated, and each strand was perfect for melting and folding into dishes. I also had a much easier time cleaning the shredding disc, though, and getting out the cheese remnants felt like a breeze compared to pushing out pumpkin chunks.
Recipe Verdict: Ultimately, it suffers from the same buildup issue as cheaper models, which is a disappointing result for a premium machine.
- Value for money score: 4 out of 5
Final thoughts
While I thoroughly enjoyed my hands-on time with the Breville Paradice 9, I came away with mixed feelings. Despite it being seriously speedy in how it pureed, sliced and diced food items, it didn’t perform anything revolutionary that a standard, non-Breville processor couldn’t also achieve. My KitchenAid shredder attachment performs just as well, and other alternatives, such as the Ninja Quad Blade Food Processor or the Kenwood MultiPro Express, are just as capable — for less than half the price, too.
For a mid-range food processor, it certainly has strengths – it’s compact, powerful, and comes with a solid range of attachments. I appreciated the wide chute and the clever storage design that keeps everything tidy in one bowl.
While the Paradice 9 excelled at making smooth nut butters, purees and doughs with incredible speed, it was let down by fiddly dicing and grating attachments that trapped food and made cleanup frustrating.
While the Paradice 9 certainly saves time and effort, it doesn’t entirely eliminate manual work – and at $399 / £299 / AU$529, it might not feel like a must-have for everyone. So, who is the Paradice 9 for? If you’re a heavy user who values raw power, a compact design and a long warranty, the high price might be a worthy investment. However, if you’re looking for a machine that magically eliminates the common frustrations of food prep, you’ll be disappointed.
At this price, you’re also forced to consider if it’s worth spending more for the larger Paradice 16 with more bells and whistles, including a French fry attachment. But regardless of what model you choose, you’re still investing a pretty penny into a Breville appliance.
- Final verdict: useful, efficient, but not revolutionary.
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lucy.scotting@futurenet.com (Lucy Scotting)
