10 Great Christmas Gift Ideas for the Home & Kitchen
The great thing about home and kitchen Christmas gifts is they’re the kind of presents you’ll use everyday for years to come. Any coffee lover will appreciate the great tasting brews a good machine will produce every morning and a home baker will love how much easier making beautiful fresh bread is with a high-quality stand mixer.
Our 10 home and kitchen Christmas gift ideas offer something for everyone. Whether you want to surprise and delight a dedicated chef or make mornings that little bit sweeter for a fanatical coffee or tea drinker, our list of the best home and kitchen Christmas gifts has something to fit.
Best Hand Blender:Tefal SlimForce
Any home baker or chef needs a good hand blender as they’re a great multi-use item. All hand blenders have a main stem blender and include one or two whisk attachments, but few can handle delicate sauces and condiments like mayonnaise. The new Tefal SlimForce is the exception. It comes with a special sauce attachment that’s specially designed to emulsify mayonnaise, tartars, remoulades and other sauces in seconds. Its ergonomic design and great power makes short work of other tasks, too, and there’s a turbo mode for when you need a little more power.
Price: £50
Read our full Tefal SlimForce review or head to our best hand blenders round-up for more options
Best Smoothie Maker: NutriBullet
This is one of the must-have Christmas gifts of 2014 – it’s the ultimate, single-serving smoothie maker. Two things make the NutriBullet stand out: one is the fact its powerful motor and blades can tackle everything, including seeds; the other is how the three supplied cups have lids so you can take your smoothie with you straight from the machine.
As the name implies, the NutriBullet has a strong focus on making healthy smoothies. The 50 supplied recipes combine fruit, vegetables and seeds to help you get your five a day. It’s a simple, fun way to enjoy healthy smoothies that also taste great.
Price: £100 / $89
Best Coffee Machine: Nespresso Lattissima Pro by DeLonghi
This Nespresso pod coffee machine is the absolute ultimate in convenient, high quality coffee. Using the popular Nespresso pod system of George Clooney fame, the Lattissima Pro is a quality machine that includes a 500ml milk carafe in addition to its 1.3l water tank. This and its 19-bar pressure pump makes it ideal for creating milk-based coffee drinks – we adore the latte macchiatos this machine produces.
It has six drink presets – cappuccino, latte macchiato, babyccino, espresso, lungo and ristretto – and you can save your own presets dictating exactly how much coffee or milk you want. It makes outstanding coffee and looks good doing it. Looking for something cheaper? Head to our best coffee machine round-up for more options.
Price: £429 / $449
Best Hot Drinks Maker:Dolce Gusto Oblo by Krups
If you’re not a fan of the Nespresso system, consider this Dolce Gusto hot drinks machine instead. The nice thing about the Dolce Gusto Oblo by Krups is it makes a variety of hot drinks, including tea and hot chocolate.
That said it still makes very good coffee using compatible pods from the Dolce Gusto range. The machine is available in orange, white, read and black and its stylish, compact design will sit well in most kitchens. The only serious limitation is the small water capacity, which means you’ll need to refill it quite often.
Price: £89.99
Best Stand Mixer: KitchenAid Artisan 6L
This stand mixer is the ideal gift for any serious fan of the Bake Off. This high-capacity version of the Artisan mixer from the show can handle up to 1.6kg of flour, need enough dough for six loaves of bread or mash 2.95kg of potatoes. It’s the perfect machine for anyone who likes to cook and bake in bulk and does so often.
The metal body gives this machine a hefty, quality feel and it comes in three fetching colours – Empire Red, Candy Apple and Frosted Pearl. Each of the 10 speed settings have ‘soft starts’ to avoid messes and even at top speed the machine doesn’t. It’s a fantastic mixer and if it’s a little too large, considering the smaller and cheaper version on which this is based.
Price: £699 / $450
Read our full KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer review
Best Kettle:Russell Hobbs BRITA Purity Kettle
If you want to make the ultimate cup of tea then you need pure, filtered water. The Russell Hobbs BRITA Purity Kettle is the answer to this problem as it builds a filter directly into the kettle. You can really see and taste the difference – check the comparisons in our BRITA Purity Kettle review if you don’t believe us.
The filter isn’t the only cool feature. The handle rotates 360-degrees so you can have it anywhere you like, and the kettle glows blue when boiling – it looks cool. The only downside is the ongoing cost of the filters and the limited 1-litre capacity. If these are deal breakers, consider the Kenwood Turin SJM550 instead.
Price: £25
Best Toaster: Magimix Vision Toaster
If no morning is complete without jam and toast then the Magimix Vision Toaster is the perfect kitchen Christmas gift. The key feature of this 2-slice toaster is the clear window, which takes all the guess work out when your toast is ready.
This toaster looks stunning, too, while the large slots make it easy to fit thick bloomer bread, pitas and plenty more. Prefer bagels? There’s a dedicated bagel mode and there’s another for reheating toast.
Price: £160 / $189
Read our best toaster round-up for more great options
Best Fan: Dyson Hot and Cool
Dyson fans a luxury, but if you’re going to indulge then the Dyson Hot and Cool fan is the way to go. Like all Dyson’s fans it employs the firm’s air multiplier technology, which means it’s quieter and more efficient the rivals and doesn’t have any blades. Digital controls let you set a specific temperature and the supplied remote lets you control it from a distance. It’s a stunning piece of kit that performs just as well as it looks.
Price: £339 / $400
Best Cooking Gadget: SousVide Supreme
The SousVide Supreme will delight any home chef with serious pretensions – it’s a must have for any budding Masterchef. This professional standard water bath for the home will let you cook tender meats that are packed with flavour. Sous vide cooking relies on vacuum packing so you can cook at lower temperatures for longer, locking in flavour as a result.
It’s a daunting prospect for first timers, but a useful guide will get you started and the possibilities are endless. A 2kg piece of beef fits easily into the 11.2-litre water bath and you have ultimate control over the temperature in 0.5C increments. Just remember to factor in £70 to £100 for vacuum sealer to go with it.
Price: £350 / $395
Best Health Grill: Tefal OptiGrill
Whether you believe in the concept of health grills or not, a good one will cook fantastic meat with little fuss. The Tefal OptiGrill is a very good one. It retains the juices and flavour of the meat beautifully, while the removable non-stick plates make it much easier to clean than rivals. The only real downsides are its size and the fact results cooking from frozen are somewhat mixed.
Price: £100 / $180
More Christmas Gift Ideas: New Smartphone Owners | For the Gamers | Home and Kitchen Gadgets | Photography Lovers | For Audiophiles | For Filmmakers
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
