Mastering The Art of Converting Recipes for your Thermomix® Appliance

When I first purchased my Thermomix® Appliance, I was excited to try a lot of my favourite recipes. Non-Thermomix® Appliance recipes that had been family favourites plus ones passed down by my grandma.

Over time, I was able to become more comfortable transforming several recipes for it to be suitable with my machine. 

And since I have been receiving a lot of questions about how to convert conventional recipes, here are some tips that I would like to share with you.

You can start off by looking for a similar recipe in the Basics Cookbook that came along with your appliance. That will serve as your guide when making variations to the way you cook your recipes in aThermomix® Appliance.

For Chopping:

This is easy when you get more familiar with yourThermomix® Appliance. You will also learn to listen to food being chopped to know the texture it is at. The speed that you’ll be using will depend on the texture that you like.

For pureés, you can set the speed at 7-10, This works best if you're making baby food, or soups, milling nuts, seed and spices, and sugar. Set the speed 4-5 if you want to have the feel of roughly chopped ingredients for salads or dicing onions.

For Making Cakes:

The general rule is to combine all your dry ingredients first (flour, sugar, cocoa powder). Mix for 10 or 15 seconds on Speed 4 to combine. And then add your wet ingredients (butter, milk, eggs). Then mix the wet and dry ingredients for 15 or 20 seconds to combine at Speed 4.

Scrape down the sides and if not fully mixed, mix for a further 10 seconds at Speed 4. It’s important to not overmix cake batters or you will end up with flat pancakes.

And with aThermomix® Appliance there is no need to sift flours, or cream butter and sugar.

For Steaming:

Check that you have at least 500g water in your bowl. You may need to add 250g of water every 10-15 minutes. Ensure your Varoma® Appliance is not over pakced.

I recommend placing vegetables that need more cooking in the Varoma® Appliance base (potatoes, carrots) and for softer veggies that are steamed quicker, place them on the Varoma® Appliance tray. 

For Sautéing:

I recommend setting the temperature to 100°C so that you are sautéing at a high temp. So that you don’t purée your onion, cook at Reverse Speed Soft for 3 to 5 minutes depending on how many vegies you are sautéing.

A quick peek will let you know if your vegies are sautéed enough - they will be translucent in colour. To add some nice golden colours, just sauté longer - but remember to reset Reverse!