Kitchen Aid Mixers

There are many brands of power mixers available to the home chef, with perhaps the most recognizable being Kitchen Aid. The traditional look of a Kitchen Aid mixer is so well known that to many people it's simply what a mixer should look like. Originally available only in white, they are now available in a variety of colors, and some specialty cooking supply stores have even commissioned Kitchen Aid mixers in custom colors available only through them.

The traditional Kitchen Aid mixer is the type known as a stand mixer. This means that the mixer is attached to a stand that sits on the counter top and holds both the mixer and the mixing bowl. The mixer can be raised and lowered to put the beaters into the bowl, and as the beaters rotate, the bowl spins in a circle to help distribute the contents better.

The mixers are available in several power levels, with the larger horsepower models being able to handle bigger jobs, and larger amounts of ingredients. The mixers can also accept a variety of accessories such as grain mills, meat grinders, fruit juicers, and pasta expellers. These may not all fit on all model mixers, so care should be taken when ordering accessories that they fit the appropriate model mixer.

Mixers can handle a variety of tasks, and Kitchen Aid mixers excel at virtually all of them. Eggs can be beaten, meringue whipped, whipped cream beaten into peaks, cake batter and cookie dough beaten and mixed, and with the appropriate attachment, bread dough can be kneaded. In fact, some people buy a Kitchen Aid mixer for the sole reason that they want to have a steady supply of homemade bread. To knead bread dough the ingredients are added to the mixing bowl and combined but then a special attachment called a dough hook is used in place of the normal beaters. The dough hook is a very stiff piece metal that has bent into a hook-like shape, and which is rotated through the dough by the mixing action. This can take ten minutes or more, but at the end of the process, the dough has been as fully kneaded as if it had been done by hand. The only difference is that the baker can step away from the kitchen and return when the process is complete.

Kitchen Aid mixers are reliable, and hold their value well. In fact, many are handed down from one generation of cooks to the next because they last so long, and wear so well.