I was extremely excited when Philips, who hosted a wonderful Christmas lunch for some bloggers, asked if I’d like to try out their Airfryer. I love kitchen gadgets and am very quickly running out of room to store them all, but who could turn down this slick looking machine?

As soon as it arrived we decided it would be chips for tea! We filled the basket with thin cut chips (just regular supermarket ones) and set the timer for 10 minutes. At first I thought the machine was going to take off! It cooks using a grill-like mechanism and a fan, hence the noise, which sounds a bit like a hoover, and the name ‘airfryer’ (very little or no oil needs to be added to most things). The noise wasn’t a huge problem as the airfyer was in the kitchen and we were in another room. I shook the chips after 5 minutes and after 10 minutes we had the most amazing chips ever. Seriously, I was wondering how different they could actually taste to oven cooked chips but they were so delicious. Even Dale commented and he’s not known for his culinary appreciation!

I’ve also tried cooking chicken drumsticks – which came out lovely and moist, potato wedges and doughnuts (as suggested by Kat). The recipe I used for these was wrong as there wasn’t enough liquid included (it was a Tana Ramsay recipe) but it still produced some yummy treats, just not very doughnut-like!

I am not a huge fan of cleaning kitchen gadgets and the general rule is that if it doesn’t go in the dishwasher, it doesn’t come into my kitchen! So I was incredibly relieved that both the basket and drawer lift out and go into the dishwasher. It makes life so much easier. I should imagine though, if you don’t have a dishwasher, it wouldn’t be too difficult to clean.

My next aim is to try out the chocolate brownie recipe from the recipe book that comes with the machine to see how it compares to brownies cooked in the oven. The only problem is that the basket is small and I don’t have a baking tin small enough to fit in it!

All in all, we’ve had great fun with the Airfryer – it is bulky to store and quite pricey but we’ve found it is actually a pretty useful and well-used addition to the kitchen.

This is a review post – I was sent a free Philips Airfryer to review.