The appliance also comes with a cork trivet, a lid holder, and a Y-shaped wood tool that’s perfect for scraping food from the edges of the pot.
How is it different from a regular slow cooker?
The Magnifique cooker is made from kaolin clay, which traps heat efficiently, resulting in faster slow-cooking (something of an oxymoron, but you get the idea). The kaolin clay pot is super durable, ranking 8.5 on the Mohs’ scale, the standard measurement of mineral hardness. (For reference, diamonds are a 10; glazed aluminum cookware ranks at 2.5.) It’s free of plastic and PFAS and is naturally nonstick.
Magnifique claims that this is the only slow cooker on the market made from 100% clay, though the existence of other products, such as the Vitaclay, challenge that assertion. And while many slow cookers now offer coated aluminum or stainless steel pots, the original Crock-Pot slow cooker that took over American kitchens in the 1970s featured a ceramic crock similar to Magnifique’s. Indeed, even today, the Crock-Pot brand still produces many slow-cooker products with removable oven-safe stoneware crocks. Unlike Magnifique’s completely clay pot, however, these stoneware crocks are glazed in a silicate made of a blend of quartz, feldspar, and clay. According to Crock-Pot’s brand site, the FDA specifies allowable amounts of lead, cadmium, and other substances, and its products meet or exceed those FDA requirements. According to Magnifique, because it exclusively uses kaolin clay for the pot and glaze, it does not contain traces of heavy metals. Do with that information as you will.
The more significant design differences that set the Magnifique apart from the Crock-Pot are the Magnifique’s oven-safe clay lid (opposed to the glass and plastic Crock-Pot lid) and its Sear/Sauté setting, which the Crock-Pot lacks. Other slow cookers currently available like the Cuisinart Cook Central, do have a Sauté/Browning setting.
What I cooked using the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker
Over the course of a few weeks, I made various things in the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker with the goal of testing all its different capabilities.
Stew
I started with a classic red wine beef stew recipe, a veritable slow cooker classic. Since the beef needs to be seared to build a good base flavor, I’d typically use my Dutch oven instead of a slow cooker or Instant Pot to make this because the appliances often don’t get hot enough to properly brown the beef, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Magnifique’s browning capability. The beef chunks took on a good amount of color and built up a nice fond on the bottom of the pot before the liquid went in.
True to its promise for faster slow-cooking, the beef was incredibly tender after three hours at the low setting.
