delicious. reviews: Lakeland Dual Basket Air Fryer with Easy View Windows

Star rating: ★★★★☆
Best for: Size on a budget

Price: £99.99 RRP
Volume: 8 litres (two 4-litre drawers)

BUY NOW FROM LAKELAND

BUY NOW FROM AMAZON

What’s good about it?

Lakeland has 68 stores around the UK and a team of knowledgeable and helpful staff which means they are an excellent place to shop if you want to see air fryers in the flesh and have a chance to handle them before you buy. This model comes from Lakeland’s own-brand electrical range and is competitively priced with an RRP under £100.

Lakeland own-brand appliances also benefit from a longer-than-average three-year guarantee which is an indication of the trust that the company has in their own products.

The dual-basket model has two independent cooking zones which are both four-litre capacity. The easy-view windows meant I could check on food cooking without opening the drawer and letting the hot air escape – particularly useful when baking and you want to check that the dish is rising.

This air fryer has a compact footprint and a clean minimal look with a clear-to-read touchscreen display.

There are eight programmes for cooking different types of food. These are steak, chicken legs/wings, seafood, fish, pizza, fries, bakes and vegetables. Each of these programmes has a suggested time and temperature, which you can alter as you see fit. The programmes are designed to take the guesswork out of cooking and are useful for people who are new to air fryers, however, unlike some more expensive models, the different programmes all run at the same fan speed.

As usual I tested this air fryer with our most popular chocolate cake recipe and the biggest problem I encountered is that the 16cm sandwich tins I’ve successfully used in every air fryer so far do not fit into this model. Although the capacity of this air fryer is a generous eight litres, the two drawers are long and thin, which limits the choice of dishes that fit inside them. Instead I cooked half quantities of the cake in a 1lb loaf tin; still delicious, but not so much of it to go around.

Replacement crisper plates for this air fryer are incredibly well priced at just £4.99, which is useful to know in case you ever damage one.

What’s not so good about it?

This air fryer has a more limited temperature range than others we have tested, with a minimum of 80°C and maximum of 200°C. That smaller temperature range means you can’t dehydrate in this appliance and we found that it was slower than other models to crisp up potatoes, which usually benefit from a higher temperature.

The drawers of this air fryer are non-stick but are not dishwasher-safe. Instead Lakeland advises to wash them in warm soapy water with a non-abrasive sponge. As a budget model, there has been some inevitable economising on features and this means the eight programmes are controlled by just one button, so you have to scroll through the programmes by repeatedly pressing the button. If you are a little impatient and miss the one you want to select, you may have to go round a second time!

My favourite feature

Like many air fryers, this model has a sync feature which means that you can set both baskets up to cook for different times and temperatures but program them so that they finish at exactly the same time.

Overall verdict

With a three-year guarantee and a price point at under £100 this model will be hard to beat for its size. For nervous shoppers who are tentatively dipping their toe into the world of air fryers there’s also the added reassurance of a bricks-and-mortar shop in which they can ask for advice and make the purchase.

Browse all our favourite air fryer recipes.