The Thermomix has been painted with many brushes since its release. Some called it a fad or gimmick, others a Thermie and a lifesaver, but in my recent experience there’s one word that sums it up… convenience.

I first heard of Thermomix a few years ago from a colleague. Her son has coeliac disease and she has a myriad of autoimmune conditions, so they both require dedicated gluten free diets. She never enjoyed cooking and felt resentment towards food and their dietary needs. She will tell absolutely anyone that the Thermomix truly changed her relationship with the kitchen. In addition to the variety of food she now creates for her family in no time at all, she constantly raves about how user-friendly the Thermomix  is and that clean-up is a snap with the unit being dishwasher safe. It’s even portable so they can take it with them on holiday or to dinner parties. As a family, they were amazed at how much money they saved by cooking at home more, milling their own flours and reducing food wastage. Even with that glowing review, when she told me the price I thought she was crazy! Fast-track to a few years later when I tried a Thermomix  for the first time, I quickly realised how worth the investment they truly are.

When the Thermomix  consultant brought the machine to my house, I was pretty excited to see what all the hype was about. All it took was almonds whizzed into almond meal in a matter of seconds for the penny to drop… and that was just the beginning!

For the first time in my life I’ve been in a baking frenzy. Thermomix’s brand new one hundred percent gluten free cookbook, Good food, gluten free, has nearly one hundred recipes with an easy-to-use baking section. In one afternoon we, the Thermomix and I, baked an easy coconut cake, whipped up a custard filling, and churned out a lemon ice cream torte all before starting on dinner! Personally I’ve have never had a major passion for baking as I found creating gluten free baked goods to be a complex undertaking, usually with average results. Fortunately, there’s an ever increasing number of recipes using alternative types of gluten free flours that produce fluffy, flaky and delicious baked goods. With the Thermomix, you can even make these flour alternatives from scratch, saving time and money as these whole ingredients are often already in your pantry. Good food, gluten free instructs how to quickly and easily blitz your grains, nuts and seeds into a beautiful powdery flour, and the Thermomix even measures out the quantities with its built in scales and the intelligent programming takes care of the rest.