I had an Oster 10-Cup Food Processor for about a year and a half before it blew itself up in a blaze of glory. I don't bake and I only used the thing once or twice a week tops to make pesto, hummus, or to shred soft things like kale or yellow squash. I don't think I pushed the thing to its limits, but the fact is that the motor burned out and I needed a new one.

It was a lucky coincidence that the thing decided to die about a month before my bridal shower. I didn't want to mess around with a lower-end model again, so I added the Cuisinart DLC-2011BCN Prep 11 Plus Food Processor to my registry. At $179.99, it wasn't something that I was going to be able to convince my husband to buy, but I figured he wouldn't be able to complain if someone else chose to buy it for us. We have wonderful family and friends and someone did, in fact, buy this food processor for us.

About This Product

This food processor has an 11-cup capacity for your mixing, pureeing, slicing, shredding, and dough-making needs. Cuisinart boasts that it has an extra-wide feed tube and Dough-Control technology which automatically adjusts the speed for the correct consistency. There are four control buttons on the base of the machine: off, on, pulse, and dough. The Cuisinart Prep 11 Plus Food Processor comes with the traditional mixing/pureeing blade, a shredding blade, a slicing blade, and a little post-adapter that allows you to get the slicing and shredding blades into place.

This product has a 3 year-warranty for household use. The Cuisinart web site claims that it has a 10 year warranty, but that applies only to the motor. Everything else, including plastic housing, bowl, blades, etc. is covered for three years.

My Experience With The Cuisinart Prep 11 Plus

When I first pulled this thing out of the box, I was a bit disappointed at the cheesy appearance. Based on the picture shown on the Cuisinart and Bed, Bath, and Beyond web sites, I thought that this machine had a stainless steel base. Wrong. The base is plastic with a silver paint job. It doesn't look nearly as nice on my counter as I thought it would.

Still, I was willing to get past the appearance if the performance was good. I decided to make something easy: hummus. I dumped the garlic, chick peas, yogurt, tahini, lemon juice, and spices into the bowl, and tried to twist the top lid into place. I couldn't do it. I messed around with it for about twenty minutes and became angrier and angrier as each minute passed. I even started trying to just force the thing into place and was past the point of caring if I broke it. After my husband got home, I had him look at it and he was stumped for awhile too. Eventually he figured out that the bottom of the bowl wasn't completely snapped into place which was why the lid wouldn't fit. The "improved safety features" that Cuisinart brags about stumped two adults for at least half an hour. It seems like overkill to me, but that's coming from someone who doesn't have young children in the house.

Once I finally figured out how to get my Cuisinart Prep 11 Plus DLC-2011BCN 11-Cup Food Processor to work, I had no issue using it to slice raw beets, shred things like squash, carrots, and apples, and puree herbs, pesto, and hummus. The motor has never slowed or faltered even after many minutes of slicing raw beets. Although I’ve used the Cuisinart Prep 11 Plus weekly since I received it back in March, I’ve never tried to make dough with it. I never bake cookies or cakes. I occasionally make homemade pizza dough but that is more of a winter thing, so I haven’t had the opportunity to try out the “dough” setting.

I don't know that I would agree with Cuisinart's description of the feed tube as "extra-wide". It looks average-sized to me and is actually narrower than the one on my deceased Oster machine. Also, I should note that the slicing blade is extremely sharp. I took a small chunk out of one of my fingers, but really that was my own fault for not paying enough attention to what I was doing at the time.

Cleanup after use is very easy. I put everything but the base into the top rack of the dishwasher. Blades, bowl, lid, and even the blade adapter all go into the dishwasher and come out sparkling clean. If the plastic base needs to be cleaned, I just wipe it down with a damp cloth and maybe a spritz of Simple Green if necessary. This product looks just as good today as it did straight out of the box six months ago.

Overall Opinion

I’m not a hard-core baker or a gourmet cook. I make simple things like dips, vegetable lasagna, stir fries, fresh herb sauces, and “birdie bread” which is basically corn bread mix loaded with pureed greens and shredded fruits/veggies. The Cuisinart Prep 11 Plus DLC-2011BCN 11 Cup Food Processor is more than adequate for my needs. $179.99 is pricey in my book, but this machine still looks brand new after six months of consistent use. I have faith that it will last much longer than the cheap Oster that I had before and recommend it to anyone who is looking for a powerful and dependable food processor.