The CHEFREE AFW20 air fryer offers 8L of capacity distributed in two baskets that allow you to cook more in less time and using less electricity. Both baskets have a transparent window so you can see the cooking status of your food at all times without having to open the basket. You can also search recipes by your specific Chefree model (Chefree makes more than one air fryer, as you can imagine), so the app will tell you exactly which buttons to press. It's the ultimate idiot's guide to air frying, but genuinely useful to get you up and running. Once you get the hang of things, new ideas and ingredients should start to pop into your head unbidden, as the potential of the device gradually dawns on you. Also on the control panel is the light button, which illuminates the cooking cavity for a minute, thanks to a window within the drawer. The window itself is small, slightly tinted, and obscured by a handle, so it’s not always easy to see how brown the food actually is.

LED display: large touch screen with double display (one per basket) to control its functions independently. Both baskets can be cooking food at the same time or you can use only one of them, as they are independently controlled. Not only did they taste delicious, they were cheap, required little effort and no washing up. They were quite small compared to other Yorkshire puddings I have eaten in the past, but that didn't bother me, I just put two or three on my plate instead. Having two completely independent cooking drawers means you can easily prepare two different foods at once, also using different programmes, times and temperatures for each drawer (e.g. roast in one; air fry in the other), yet also instruct the Chefree to have everything ready to serve at the same time. This 'Sync Finish Function' is actually reasonably amazing, to be fair, and it takes a lot of hassle out of cooking large meals to feed a family or even just something for yourself of an evening. No need to cook elements of the menu sequentially: everything can be ready at once (provided your planned meal fits into two drawers, obvs).Within each basket is a crisper plate, which can sit either one-third or two-thirds of the way down depending on what you’re cooking – you can bring foods like sausages closer to the heat source when grilling for a better finish. A handy little touch is the addition of grippy silicone feet on both sides of the grill plate that helps it stay securely place, even if you’re tipping a basket of chips onto a plate. ViewCook Window: Features the viewing window in the front of the basket, together with the internal light, it allows you to keep an eye on what was cooking - without opening the basket and letting heat escape. There is a Chefree App featuring over 100 recipes "by our chef" (the company says), organised into useful categories, e.g. 'Breakfast Food' and a '21-day Food Plan'. There's a traditonal Recipe Book format, where you can search/define by keyword (e.g. Simple, Western, French, Japanese, Difficulty etc) and also save your own recipes.

The Chefree AWF20 serves not only as a great alternative to a conventional oven with faster cook times and less energy consumption, but it also has a leg-up on most of the air fryer competition.Synchronised Cooking (L=R): Yes (to cook different foods using the same function, temperature and time) Intelligent preset programs: 8 presets (AIR FRY / ROAST / AIR CRISP / BROIL / BAKE / GRILL / DEHYDRATE / REHEAT) The post-pandemic parallel stresses of a cost-of-living crisis compounded by soaring energy bills has been a positive boon for the air fryer industry. People have still got to eat, so the idea of being able to prepare hot meals in half the time has proved a deliciously attractive proposition.

The dual 4L basket design allows you to cook two different foods at different temperatures and even different cooking modes, at the same time, with a Sync Finish option removing the need to manually time your cook so all your food is ready at the same time. The curly fries were done in 12 minutes at just 170℃, while the turkey drummers came out perfectly golden in little over 16 minutes at 180℃ – a process made much easier by the aforementioned Sync Finish feature. That’s because you’re presented with many buttons surrounding the central digital display. It was incredibly daunting initially, and it took me a few minutes to work out how to start the air fryer (the start button looks like an odd fast-forward button), but within a few uses, I’d gotten the hang of it.For each basket you have an LED display on the touch control panel and you can set different times, temperatures and programmes for each basket.

If you are going to cook the same food in both baskets you can enter the time and temperature settings in one basket and then copy those settings to the other basket with the cooking synchronisation function by pressing the L=R button. Of course, you don’t buy a huge air fryer to make cheese on toast, so let’s talk about more involved meals.The top row is reserved for all eight cooking modes: air fry, roast, air crisp, broil, bake, dehydrate, reheat and grill. Once you select one of the cooking modes, you’ll then be able to tap either L or R, depending on which basket you use and tweak your time and temperature settings using the up and down keys on either side. One of the more interesting features of the touch interface is Sync Finish. As the name suggests, this allows you to individually set each basket’s mode, temperature and time and have them both finish simultaneously. The Chefree AFW20 air fryer is the latest iteration on the air fryer concept, building on the well-established form and function, yet still managing to add a few new appealing features. While the maximum 2400W draw at full capacity will see a drain of roughly 71p an hour on current electricity tariffs, that’s still much cheaper than a conventional oven, and more importantly, it’s not very often you’ll use the air fryer for that long.