Having just received my first immersion blender, I am having problems. What have your experieces been?

I have had this same problem. You have to kinda angle it in, don’t hold it parallel with the bottom of the pot because it will pull down. (That is, the cutting surface should not be parallel, meaning the handle you are holding should not be quite perpendicular. Am I making sense?)

That’s how they work. They pull the soup down through the blades. You can gently break the suction, but be careful not to splatter cauliflower soup all over your kitchen! If you move it gently through the soup, staying near the bottom, it should be fine.

Thank you both. Why doesn’t that simple piece of advice come with the instructions (in all fifteen different languages)?

Also, be careful if the soup is shallow, because when you hold the blender at an angle like others have suggested it can splatter. Ouch. I usually tip the pot slightly with one hand to make the soup deeper, and hold the blender in the other hand. Works very well.

Also—what they say about having the heat off while you blend? Take that seriously.

When you blend, you get a very thick material—kind of like bubbles in hot springs or mud springs. When those bubbles come up, material flies a lot further. And it can land on your bare arm. And burn it. Yeah. Burn it. And leave permanent scars.

I stir my blender through the soup in a kind of circular way. When there’s a bigger chunk of something, I aim the blender toward it. I lift the blender up, but not over the surface. When things are small enough, I’ll let it attach itself to the bottom and just pull stuff.

I made this squash/sweet potato soup using what I call tomato liquor (when you make tomato sauce, you skim off the liquid instead of boiling it away—it’s delish). I also put in some poblano pepper. I had red and green, so I used up the red.

Wow! It kind of was a three-stage taste. First you got the squash sweetness. Then, the spice—enough to wake you up, but not to overpower you. The hint of tomato came at the end of the spoonful. Really quite amazing, if I do say so myself. Of course, one time only. No more tomato liquor in the house.

Let me see whether I have this right:

1. Turn heat off and cool soup .

2. Tilt the pot

3. Angle the blender

4. Stir the blender in a circular manner.

5. Treat burns on skin and clean up spatter on counters, backsplash and Milo.