The Hamilton Beach 8-Cup 70740 food processor packs a powerful punch, whipping through food preparation tasks quickly. For a compact model, it's one of the best food processors we reviewed. It performed especially well in our cookie dough tests – we mixed softened butter, an egg and dry ingredients, and the Hamilton Beach thoroughly blended them together, producing dough with an excellent texture in less than a minute. We also had good luck slicing potatoes. We ended up with uniform pieces that could cook nicely or bake well in any recipe.
Hamilton Beach 8-Cup 70740 food processor: How it performed
This Hamilton Beach model has some good selling points. For one thing, it has a sturdy suction cup on the bottom, located toward the back, that really anchors it to the counter top. In addition, when we tested with liquids, there was virtually no leaking – that wasn’t the case with some of the top-ranked food processors we tested. It is also quite easy to clean by hand, and you can pop the parts into the top rack of your dishwasher.
Our test results were a mixed bag. We shredded cheddar cheese, and it turned out fairly well. Since the bowl is relatively small, some already shredded cheese tends to build up on one side near the chute, which keeps cheese coming through the chute from shredding into uniform pieces. Some cheese was also trapped between the chute and the outer rim of the lid. Parmesan cheese fared even worse. It wasn’t very finely grated, and there were extra pieces that didn't get grated at all.
We tried to puree cauliflower with a bit of water and got uneven results there. The same happened in our efforts to chop almonds.
Onions ended up being more pureed than chopped since they were chopped so finely. The resulting pieces were not very uniform, stuck to themselves and were too small if you want genuinely diced onions – cube-shaped and smaller than chopped but bigger than minced.
When we tested raw mushrooms in this food processor, they ended up being not completely uniform. Also, although it worked through our raw spinach with lightning speed, the pieces were more torn than chopped, so they were slightly bruised and uneven. The fact that you use a knob rather than buttons proved somewhat awkward as well. Although it was doable, it took a bit of getting used to.
Should you buy the Hamilton Beach 8-Cup 70740 food processor?
The Hamilton Beach food processor has a strong motor and lots of power, works quickly, and does some food preparation tasks very fast. Our testing showed it is good for kneading and slicing firm vegetables, but our experiences with other foods produced mixed results.
