The Dualit DHB2 Hand Blender is an excellent choice for any discerning chef. Its 700W motor, upgraded from 500W of its predecessor, means it handles foods better and it comes with all the necessary accessories. There’s also a turbo mode for dealing with super-tough blends. The Braun’s whisk worked very well. We used the slower of the two speeds to whisk a couple of egg whites; it took around 30 seconds to get impressive, firm peaks.

The Tefal Infiny Force is a hand blender with larger ambitions. It comes with three handy attachments to make it a foodie’s friend in the kitchen, including a sauce foot for making your own mayonnaise, if you’ve ever fancied it. The Braun also comes with a beaker. We won’t call it a jug because there’s no spout. The beaker is graduated in millilitres and fluid ounces, but these are hard to read. The graduations go up to 600ml but the capacity to the brim is more like 900ml. We also test each model for ease of cleaning, noting which models are easy to clean up and have dishwasher-safe parts and those that don’t.More power comes in the form of a Turbo button, while a host of accessories make pureeing, blending, chopping, crushing ice, whisking and mashing super-easy. There are even storage lids included for both containers. Fuss-free, easy to clean and plenty powerful, the Morphy Richards Total Control Hand Blender is a versatile kitchen tool that will be your go-to for almost any food-prep task. Read the full review

SplashControl technology prevents splashing - to keep you and your kitchen spotless. POWERBellPLUS - Extra milling blade delivers more cutting per rotation and blends large pieces of food with less effort. In all cases, ease of use, suitability for the task at hand, and the final results are taken into consideration in our final rating.The 700 W motor is powerful and highly efficient and is great for all your favourite recipes from dips to desserts For making soups, you’re unlikely to need as many attachments, but if you’ll be using your blender to prepare lots of vegetables then a chopping tool will be a godsend. Also, is the beaker or bowl included – and how big is it? If it doesn’t fit your size requirements then you may need to look elsewhere. How much power do I need?

If you’re tired of the all-or-nothing performance of the average hand blender, you might want to consider the Morphy Richards Total Control. It’s equipped with the company’s Smart Response Technology, which builds up speed gradually so blitzing food comes without the usual jerks and splatters.We cooked up a soup with our onions, then blended it. The Braun’s blender proved powerful and the two speed settings were handy for not causing a splash. The resulting soup had a good, smooth consistency. It’s a great selection of accessories for the price, but together they’re a bit fiddly to store. You can kind of shove them all into each other to save cupboard space but there’s been no attempt to design them to fit together neatly. If you only plan to use your blender to blend then you might as well get a more basic model.

For those that have a whisk attachment, we test using cream or egg whites, whipping until we get firm peaks. The easy-to-use dual-speed control puts the power in the palm of your hands, literally: choose between a slower or faster rotation depending on how smooth you want the texture of your food to be. The fast setting is perfect for creating silky-smooth sauces and soups, while the slower setting is ideal for heart-warming chunky broths. Boasting Braun's patented PowerBell technology, alongside an additional milling blade, this hand blender significantly reduces your food prep time. Fortified with 700W of power, it makes light work of blasting through even the most stubborn of whole foods, eliminating the need for pesky time-consuming pre-cutting, giving you loads more time to get on with other tasks, perfect! Featuring Braun's SplashControl technology, this hand blender keeps you and your kitchen spotless, reducing the time it takes you to clean up after you've made your tantalising treats!You also get a standard blending foot and a whisk attachment, plus two jugs – an 800ml for soups and a smaller one for sauces. All attachments worked really well during testing, with a variable speed dial for adjusting just how much welly the job at hand needs. And if you need a burst of power to finish it off, there’s a turbo button for exactly that. We liked the Braun’s industrial design. It sits comfortably in the hand, with a bumpy texture on the white plastic body for extra grip. Your index finger falls on the button for the slower of the two speeds and your middle finger is perfectly positioned for the faster one.