I made Mary Berry’s easy summer soup recipe in just 15 minutes and it was delicious

When it comes to soups that are both simple yet scrumptious, no one does it better than the legendary Mary Berry. She has crafted an array of wildly delicious vegetable soup recipes over her 60-plus-year cooking career.

Having already made her family's favourite tomato soup and her springtime minestrone soup and loving them, it was time to whip up her summer soup recipe, otherwise known as gazpacho. Gazpacho is a light and fresh no-cook soup made with the ripest tomatoes.

For this recipe, you will need a hand blender or food processor, so I decided to put the MultiQuick 9 Hand Blender which doubles up as a food processor to the test.

Braun is probably one of the first names you think of when it comes to small appliances. The brand designs and manufactures a huge range of household and personal care appliances, and is the global market leader for hand blenders.

Blenders really are an invaluable piece of kitchen equipment as they allow you to cut down on time, mess and equipment in preparing everyday foods, and treat properly they can last for many years.

Upon unboxing the Braun MultiQuick 9 Hand Blender MQ9187XLI, I found that the appliance comes with many parts. To start with there’s the XL food processor, chopper, a handful of different slicing and shredding blades, dough blades, and pretty much everything else you'd expect from a high-quality food processor.

What’s more, it's also got a blender attachment, a whisk, a potato masher, and a mini chopper. 

Retailing currently at £159 down from £199.99 on the Braun website, this blender is on the pricy side, but is it worth it?

Mary Berry's gazpacho recipe

Ingredients (Three portions) 

For the soup

30g white sourdough bread, crusts removed

500g medium very ripe tomatoes, skinned

One quarter large cucumber, peeled, deseeded and roughly chopped

Half a garlic clove, finely grated

Half a red pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped

Half a banana shallot, roughly chopped

Two tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

One tablespoon white wine vinegar

Half a tablespoon tomato puree

One quarter teaspoon sugar

For the garnish

Half a tomato, deseeded and very finely chopped

One eight cucumber, peeled, deseeded and very finely chopped

One eight red pepper, deseeded and very finely chopped

Method 

I started by tearing the bread into pieces and placing them in a bowl before adding 75ml of water and leaving it to soak for 10 minutes.

I then cut each tomato in half, discarded the hard central stem, kept the seeds, and sliced the tomatoes into quarters.

After, I used the chopper attachment to make the large shallot pieces smaller. As soon as I turned it on, the shallot was completely blitzed almost instantly.

Next, I placed the tomatoes, cucumber, garlic, pepper, shallot, oil, vinegar, tomato puree and sugar into the bowl with the bread. I seasoned well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 

After, it was time to put the hand blender to the test to liquidise the ingredients for the soup. While a blending cup is an included accessory, I used a bowl as the cup was a little too small for the amount of soup I was making.

I blended the ingredients continuously for 50 seconds on the highest setting and it was easy to control the power with the extra-large control button.

There is also a safety feature, which requires you to first press down on the top section of the handle before pressing the trigger.

What’s more, the blender has what is called an active blade, meaning you can move the blade up and down while blending to reach deeper into a pan and increase circulation. 

With most hand blenders, I find that they splash a lot leaving behind a lot of mess, but with this, that was not the case.

None of the ingredients were a challenge for this hand blender as the soup came out completely smooth.

With the ingredients combined, I poured the soup into a jug and left it to chill in the fridge for one hour before spooning the gazpacho into bowls, drizzling with olive oil and garnishing with the chopped vegetables.

The soup tasted delicious and took even less time to make due to how powerful this blender is.

For those looking for a high-quality blender that will give a super smooth soup and finely chopped vegetables for sauces, plus extras, then look no further.

The Braun MultiQuick 9 Hand Blender MQ9187XLI can also be picked up from Curry’s for £169.99 and on Amazon for £159.99

However, for those looking for something a little smaller with fewer attachments, this may not be the blender for them.

The MQ9187XLI is the most equipped of the MultiQuick line, but there is also the Braun MQ5237 which costs not a lot less but only includes the mini chopper, whisk, blender, and puree attachment. If you already have a food processor you're happy with, you may want to go for this one. The Braun MQ5237 retails for £69.99 down from £109.99.

There are also other popular brand alternatives when it comes to immersion hand blenders like the Bosch Series 4 ErgoMaster Pressure Controlled 2-in-1 Hand Blender with Chopper that retails for £69.99 down from £84.99 at John Lewis or the Russell Hobbs Desire 3 in 1 Electric Hand Blender that retails for only £34 down from £49.99 on Amazon.