Cooking for large numbers is fast and easy with Thermomix
In her own post entitled Does the Thermomix Cook Enough for Large Families? fellow blogger Quirky Jo in Far North Queensland, Australia says “A lot of people with big families think the Thermomix would be no good for them because ‘it just wouldn’t make enough for us.’ After having a Thermomix for over 6 1/2 years, and cooking for our family of six (plus many extra kids and visitors), and also cooking at youth camps and other functions, I must say I think EVERY big family needs a Thermomix!! It just makes food preparation so much quicker and easier, no matter how many you’re cooking for, and you really can pump out a lot of food, quickly, with a Thermomix in your kitchen! (Why do you think chefs love the Thermomix so much?!)”
Thanks, Jo, for bringing up this important subject and telling us about Troy and Giselle and their family of nine children and a tenth on the way, and how they use their Thermomix to feed the family and their many guests.
Here are some more ideas and techniques for making the most out of Thermomix – literally!
How big is the Thermomix bowl?
The Thermomix bowl has a capacity of 2.5L, or 2L for blending. While it’s small enough to cook for just one or two, the Thermomix bowl is large enough to cater for large families and large numbers. How many do you cook for?
Preparation time for large numbers is greatly reduced thanks to Thermomix
The design of the blade and the bowl, combined with the power of the Thermomix motor, make preparation tasks fast and easy. With Thermomix you can chop a whole kilogram of onions in just 4 seconds! Madame Thermomix often chops 8 kilos of onions, carrots and celery in 4 minutes only…
Need to make lots of soup? Make a concentrate
Two litres of soup serves 4 to 6 people. To make a larger quantity, make two litres of concentrated soup with doubled or tripled quantities of sautéed vegetables, add stock and cook. Then dilute with more stock to make your needed quantity in a large stock pot, for instance. For a summertime treat, make a concentrated Spanish Gazpacho and then add cold water and ice cubes to produce a delightful chilled soup for large crowds.
Save time with stews by making sauces in the Thermomix
For large quantities of stews and casseroles, Thermomix will save you time. Double or triple your sauce quantities in the Thermomix while you brown off the meat or poultry on the hob (stove). Pour the sauce over the browned meat and finish cooking in the oven or Aga.
How much meat can I cook in the Thermomix?
You can add up to 1.5 kg of stewing steak, for instance, on top of your chopped and sautéed onions, garlic, carrots, etc., to make a big beef stew that will only take 90 minutes in the Thermomix instead of about 4 hours on the hob (stove) or in the oven. After sautéing your veg, add the meat, plus stock and flour to thicken. Cook 100°C/15 minutes/Speed spoon/Reverse blade to bring to the boil. Then cook 90°C/60 minutes/Speed spoon/Reverse blade; check doneness and cook a further 15 minutes if necessary.
Sauces, gravies and custards are a snap in the Thermomix
Two litres of gravy will serve 12 to 15 people and if you need more, it’s so fast and easy to make another batch in your Thermomix.
Cakes and desserts are fast, too
Thermomix is loved by cake makers because it can take up to a 10-egg cake mixture. First chop your extras like carrots, dried fruit and chopped apples in the Thermomix bowl (it’s really quick to do) and tip out into a large container. Then prepare your egg and flour mixture in the Thermomix bowl and combine with the other ingredients.
Make the best Sunday Lunch with Thermomix
While your joint (roast) is resting, Thermomix’s 3-litre Varoma steamer can steam vegetables for 12 to 15 people while it’s making your gravy! Take your joint out of the oven and let it rest while you quickly prepare some Yorkshire Pudding mix. Tip it out and bake your puds in the oven. No need to wash out the bowl as the leftover flour, egg and milk will be the perfect base for your gravy. Pour the pan juices into the TM bowl and top up to make 1.5L of gravy. While the gravy is cooking on Varoma setting/12 minutes/Speed 4, pop your vegetables into the Varoma steamer and place it on top of the bowl to steam at the same time. Save time, save energy and feed a large hungry family all at once!
Financial savings, too
Thermomix can save you money as well as time when you need to process large quantities. A great example is whole spices v. ground spices. Already ground spices at the supermarket can be quite expensive but if you purchase whole spices at your local ethnic shop and grind them in the Thermomix as you need them you’ll save lots of money and always have a fast supply of fresh, tasty spices.
Need more? Save time by making it in batches
Because Thermomix works so quickly at both “prep” tasks and at cooking, it’s fast and easy to make several batches of your recipe, one after another. Like the restaurant where the Pastry Chef used to spend 2½ hours every morning making bread for 56 people. With Thermomix he made the same quantity of bread in batches, and it only took him 30 minutes!
How about custard for 1,100?
A chef in Scotland regularly makes custard for 1,100 people in his Thermomix. Homemade custard costs less and tastes better than the industrially-produced version, so the chef batches his own custard in his Thermomix to make enough for 1,100. Since the Thermomix does the stirring and cooking, the chef is free to perform his other tasks and he serves delicious, homemade custard made in the Thermomix.
While you may not have to make quite this much custard, you can certainly use the batching method and the other methods above to cook for large groups and large families. Madame Thermomix uses her Thermomix as an extra pair of hands in the kitchen when catering single-handedly for 50 people for Tongham Village Hall fundraising dinners. Chefs around the world use Thermomix in their restaurants. Bakers and pastry makers get consistent, high quality doughs and batters with Thermomix, as well as saving time. And as Jo tells us in Quirky Cooking, Troy and Giselle in Australia feed their nine children and up to 30 daily guests with theirs, so you can, too!
Bon appétit with Thermomix !
Hi Maria! So it’s soup for 350 people, eh? Basically, I’d recommend starting off as I said in the blog post:
Need to make lots of soup? Make a concentrate
Two litres of soup serves 4 to 6 people. To make a larger quantity, make two litres of concentrated soup with doubled or tripled quantities of sautéed vegetables, add stock and cook. Then dilute with more stock to make your needed quantity in a large stock pot, for instance. For a summertime treat, make a concentrated Spanish Gazpacho and then add cold water and ice cubes to produce a delightful chilled soup for large crowds.
More importantly, you should consider how you will serve the soup, i.e. hot or cold. Will you need huge pots to reheat? Will you have access to a commercial kitchen or will you need a veritable battalion of thermos flasks?
When will you be serving your soup – could you make ahead and freeze a concentrate (as above) and “dilute” it when reheating?
You’ll need to do some calculations, starting with what quantity per serving? Starter size or main course soup?
Two litres of 3 x concentrated soup will yield 6 litres of soup, so how many servings will that be for you?
It’s winter in Oz, isn’t it? Gaspacho is super easy to make ahead of time and store in glass bottles or plastic containers in several refrigerators but I doubt that a cold soup would be welcome in winter 🙁
These are some of the questions you need to be asking yourself. If you’d like to reply back with the answers and with any other information you can provide, I’d be happy to have a think about it and see what else I can advise.
Good luck, I look forward to hearing back from you, and happy Thermomix cooking!
Jane aka Madame Thermomix
I need to make soup for 350 people. What do you recommend??
Well done ladies, that’s absolutely fantastic! Coleslaw for 300, woo hoo! Can you just imagine the time it would have taken you to make it without your brigade of Thermomixes? The mind boggles at the thought of all that cutting, grating, slicing and chopping. Good on you!
Thanks so much for leaving a comment and sharing the Thermomix love – this blog feeds on your comments 😉
A few months ago, 2 of my girlfriends and I made coleslaw as per the EDC for 300 people as a side dish, we had 3 TM’s going for about an hour (carrots and apples peeled, onions quartered beforehand) we did the coleslaw in batches and then emptied into a large plastic tub, added the mayonnaise and hey presto! it was a huge hit with baked potatoes, toppings etc, people said it was very tasty and it was so quick and easy!!! I can’t live without my TM!
Hi Rebecca, thanks for reading Why Is There Air.
To answer your question, with a little practice and organisation it takes less than 5 minutes to make a loaf of bread using the standard Thermomix bread recipes (see p112 in EDC or p168 in F&E or in my post called “Graceful Bread”). You should be able to make a double batch (i.e. 2 loaves) in the same amount of time.
So if you can make 2 loaves in 5 minutes you can make 24 loaves in 60 minutes (60 ÷ 5 = 12; 12 x 2 loaves = 24 loaves). Bingo! If I were going to make 24 loaves of bread I’d get my bench really organised so I don’t have to go searching for ingredients every time. I’m sure that as you make more and more loaves of bread you’ll make them ever faster and you might even beat this 😉
Happy Thermomix bread making!
How would you make 2 dozen loaves of bread in an hour? Takes me ages just to make one. Sounds almost to good to be true
Fabulous, Jane, and just what I was looking for to send to school to give the canteen an idea of how useful a Thermomix could be to them!
Thanks so much for your input, Seana! I’m sure you’ve calmed some people’s worries. Thermomix really is a huge help in cooking for large numbers, in catering, and even when cooking for one. So glad you’re pleased with your Thermomix. And I love your Mum’s Diet website!
Hi there, just wanted to say I totally agree with this. I have four kids and the hungry hubby and also worried the Thermomix would be too small. It is fine for a one meal situation, but it also works so well when I do a huge slow cooker meal as I use it to chop and saute veggies etc etc It’s FAB!! Cuts down the prep time when I fill up my 7 litre slow cooker by a huge amount of time.
Wow, mango and strawberry sorbet for 27 families? Amazing! Well done! You’re right, it’s so fast and easy with Thermomix, no one waits and everyone is happy. Brilliant! Thanks for sharing.
I agree. Over Christmas, I made mango and strawberry sorbet for 27 families! Yes, it did include making in batches, but each batch was done within 1-2 minutes, that nobody felt like they were waiting too long for their share! It was my first time, making for such a large crowd!
Your custard story is fantastic, Amy, thanks! Thermomix helps so many people in so many ways, and I just love how fast and easy it makes certain chores. I’d love to hear from anyone else out there with a Thermomix story, too!
We are a family of 6 and I LOVE my thermomix. I did custard for 100 people, just in batches and then bottled it back into the milk bottles to take with us. (We wanted cold custard). 2L takes about 12 minutes. I did about 22L in about 3 1/2 hours.
Sure! 🙂
Thanks for the practical application for custard and gravy, Jo. Theory is a great place to start but I’m most interested in showing the way real people use Thermomix. May I use your story as an example in my Thermomix demonstrations, please?
Hi Jane! Only just saw this – thanks for all the great ideas – I’m going to link your post back to my post!! 😀
Re the custard, that’s pretty much how we make gravy for 100 people at camps – just in batches, then tip each batch into a big pot set over a very low heat on the stove to keep warm. It’s much quicker than placing all the ingredients at once into a big pot, as that takes forever to get hot and begin to cook, then you can’t leave it but have to keep stirring, and it usually ends up lumpy that way! The Thermomix way = no lumps!!! (And no slaving over a hot stove!!) 🙂
Thanks for raising this question, Barb! In fact, it only takes 7 minutes to make 2.5 litres of custard so you just keep batching the custard in the Thermomix until you have enough. It sounds like it could take quite a while but whereas you’d have to wait forever for a huge vat of milk and eggs to boil, and you wouldn’t dare stop stirring it for fear that it would stick and burn, with Thermomix you simply weigh all the ingredients into the Thermomix bowl (using the built-in weighing scales, of course!) and turn it on. Thermomix stirs constantly as it cooks the custard at a thermostatically-controlled temperature until you have a beautiful consistency with no lumps. And while Thermomix is stirring, you’re doing other kitchen tasks and saving time as well as money. And in the home situation you’re having a cup of coffee or a glass of wine 😉
So how exactly does one make custard for 1100 in a t’mix? Mix a huge vatful in the Hobart and then parcel it out to a bank of dozens of t’mixes? Just curious . . .