Beaba Babycook - Baby Food Maker

About.com Rating 4.5 Star Rating

User Rating 5 Star Rating (1 Review) Write a review

By Robin Elise Weiss, LCCE, About.com Guide

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Photo (c) Price Grabber

The Bottom Line

The Beaba Babycook is a very handy tool in the kitchen. It's great for someone who wants to make their own baby food but isn't sure where to start as well as for parents who already know what they're doing and just want it done quickly. This is perfect for parents who would like to control what goes into their baby's food. A bit pricey but worth it in the end. Makes a great group baby shower gift.

Pros

It does everything for making baby food.
Easy assembly and washing.

Cons

It would be nice to have the few parts stored on machine.
Expense

Description

Unit comes with main body, main bucket, steam basket, top, spatula and pureeing top.
Has three functions: cook, grind, reheat.
BPA Free.

Guide Review - Beaba Babycook - Baby Food Maker

The Beaba Babycook is one machine that steam cooks, purees and reheats baby food. In other words, it does it all. You simply wash, skin and cut your fruits or veggies into chunks and place them in the steaming basket. Measure the water and pour it in. Put the basket together and select the steaming option. The steaming times is based on the amount of water you put in, which is measured based on what you're cooking.

Once the steaming is done, you lift the basket out using a special spatula. You can pour the water out or save it to add back into the puree, depending on the consistency you'd like. Place the food into the main chamber and cover it, then select puree.

Once you've done it, you really can quickly get the hang of what to do. The hardest part was trying to figure out which food required what amount of water. The instructions are not inclusive of all vegetables and other foods, so you had to make some simple deduction, like a sweet potato would require about the same water level as a regular potato. It also provides you with some recipes to get a bit more bold. Our you can just use it to puree your table food.

My complaints are few, but I would add that I'd like to see another spatula included. The instructions were also a bit light for me when I got started but I did figure it out fairly easily once I got going. When you're steaming food to warm it up, you're supposed to put a container into the steam basket. The problem is that it's too hot to take out immediately. I'm impatient. And I wish that the parts all stored together. I'm a bit picky that way.

I truly enjoyed using the Beaba Babycook. My kids enjoyed helping me prepare food for the baby. Even a toddler was able to help "flip the switch" and grind up food or set it to steam. Even better my baby seemed to enjoy the food!

Also: Beaba Multi Portion Freezer Tray

User Reviews

5 out of 5

It has its quirks, but I love the Babycook!, Member herbodyworks

I would probably give 4 1/2 stars if I had that option, but my dislikes are far outweighed by my likes, so I rounded up. This truly is an all-in-one machine for making your own baby food, and it's better than steaming separately and then pureeing in a Cuisinart or other food processor, because every brand of food processor I know of currently has BPA in the plastic part that holds the food (and hot food can cause the BPA to leach into baby's food). As a bonus, I plan to use my Babycook beyond the baby food years to make purees so I can secretly add nutritious ingredients to family dishes when my son gets old enough to start refusing to eat his vegetables (a la the _Deceptively Delicious_ cookbook). Something not mentioned in the guide's review is that you can cook and puree meat and fish in the Babycook, too--not just fruits and veggies. My baby hasn't graduated to those foods yet, so I can't say how it works for cooking these items, but I'll be excited to give it a try when the time comes. I like being able to make a big batch of food in one session, freeze it in baby food trays, and then just reheat a couple of cubes in the Babycook without compromising the nutritional value of the food by microwaving it. On the downside, I agree that the instructions are nearly useless in the beginning, but it's not too difficult to figure out what works for different types of food based on the very limited list available. However, I don't like that the food tends to get TOO hot in the reheating cycle, even when it starts out frozen, so I have to stick it back in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes and wait for it to cool before I can feed my hungry baby. Perhaps my biggest complaint is that it has a tendency to leak from underneath the blade, which simply sits over the hole in the bottom of the main food compartment. This isn't annoying enough to make me not want to use it, but it definitely qualifies as a design flaw in my book (or maybe it's user error in this case, and I missed something in the so-called instruction manual??). Overall, even with these minor issues, it's easy to use, easy to clean, and helps me make really healthy, organic food for my baby, so what's not to love. And since I hope to be using it for several more years as my child continues to grow and with any other babies I might have, I think it was totally worth the investment!

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