REVIEW – I love good, multi-purpose kitchen gadgets. One staple gadget that most folks have in their homes today is a slow cooker. We’ve had a couple of different slow cookers over the years, and the last large one we had broke, so when I saw the Laura Ashley 6.5 Qt slow cooker, I had to give it a try. A good large slow cooker is invaluable when you need to feed a lot of people, so we’ve missed having one on hand. Read on to see how it held up to testing.
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $79.99
Where to buy: Target
What is it?
The Laura Ashley 6.5 Qt Slow Cooker has the standard slow cooker settings with a beautiful patterned exterior.
What’s included?
- Slow Cooker
Tech specs
- 6.5L capacity
- Voltage: 120V
- Power Consumption: 320W
Design and features
The basic design of this slow cooker is pretty much the same as most slow cookers you can find on the market today. It consists of a heating element base with a ceramic cookpot insert and lid. There are Low/High/Warm settings and that’s about it. That’s about all you need, though. I’ve seen a lot of slow cookers with additional functionality and built-in timers, but there’s just something about the simplicity of a basic slow cooker with very few electronics that, if you take care of it, will last for years.
One of the weakest points I see in slow cookers is the lid. The design of this lid looks sturdy and should be able to hold up to continuous use. There are two connect points, which prevents it from spinning. Time will tell as we use this more.
Setup
Wash and dry the ceramic cookpot and lid. That’s all you need to do.
Performance
To test this slow cooker, I wanted to see how well it held the temperature at each setting, so I filled it up with about 6 quarts of water and took an afternoon to see how it did.
Starting temperature! (Side note – Thermapens are awesome gadgets)
First up, the Low setting. The temperature settled in at around 187 degrees F.
High setting settled in at 203 degrees F, just below boiling here.
The Warm setting came in at around 158 degrees F.
Heating water is pretty simple, so making a pot of chicken tortilla soup performed admirably. We were able to get all the ingredients in before going to church, set it to Low, and came back to a great dinner. We did have to wait for some folks, and the Warm setting did a great job of keeping the food ready and in the safe zone for consumption.
Final thoughts
This is a great slow cooker. While the exterior doesn’t affect how it cooks, I really like the pattern and aesthetic. It’s pretty. The build of the slow cooker is solid and the handles seem sturdy and well-supported. That seems to be the biggest fail points I’ve seen in slow cookers. I’ll make updates if that changes with regular use, but it definitely looks promising. Overall, I definitely recommend this slow cooker and I just like how it looks in our kitchen.
What I like about the Laura Ashley 6.5 Qt Slow Cooker
- Beautiful design
- Holds temperatures very steady and heats up quickly
- Handles and build are sturdy
What needs to be improved?
- Nothing I can tell so far
Price: $79.99
Where to buy: Target
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Laura Ashley. Laura Ashley did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
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