How to Clean a Cuisinart Hand Blender, or Hand Mixer

 

I put one of these fancy new Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender on my wedding registry, and it totally rocks! It cut the amount of time we spent pureeing pumpkin down to only a few minutes rather than the hour-long production it used to be in the blender to less than five minutes. It’s also the only way I’ve ever been able to get my pumpkin spice cream cheese spread into a homogenous mixture rather than a chunky mess. If I was a smoothie person, I’d pee myself with excitement over this thing. I loved it so much… then I realized the metal piece that does the blending doesn’t come off and you have to wash it by hand.

Washing it by hand doesn’t seem so daunting unless you’ve looked under this thing and realized that under that dainty metal bell is a concoction of sharp ends and terrifying movables that should be featured on Shark Week. Not something I was excited to just shove my fingers into, not gonna lie. The first time I cleaned it, I sort of rinsed it like they said to, but the scientist in me didn’t like that because microbes don’t die without soap and  I was far from confident that it was clean to my standards.

I devised this cleaning method to keep my fingers out, get the soap in, and then to make sure the soap got cleaned completely out again so it doesn’t get into future recipes. You literally only need the blender, the cup it came with, water, a little soap, and 1-2 minutes.

 

 

Step 1: Fill the mixing cup with warm soapy water. If you’re lazy like I am sometimes and let something dry onto there, give it ~5 minutes to soak in the soap water to loosen things up. Make sure to keep the electronics dry – I balanced mine up on the edge of the sink in that corner so it couldn’t fall. If you don’t need to soak, proceed to step 2.

 

 

Step 2: Plug the blender in being careful to remember that water plus electricity can be devastating if you’re not smart about it. Make sure the electronic part of the blender stays dry do you don’t ruin it. Use either speed to pulse and mix the soap water in the cup for 30 seconds to 1 minute. When you think it’s clean, have a look. If stuff is soft and still stuck, mix more, if it’s dryish and still stuck, soak longer and repeat this step as needed.

 

 

Step 3: Once you’re confident that the blender tip is clean, lift it out of the cup and replace the soapy water with clear warm water. Pulse/blend the water for ~30 seconds to help get the soap off. Repeat this step at least once, but more if you’re still getting bubbles or soap residue.

 

 

Step 4: Let your blender air dry before putting it away to prevent rusting of the components.