Gear Heads | Which Stand Mixers Can Handle Cakes, Breads, and More?



Stand mixers work wonders when you want to whip up baked goods such as layer cakes, cookies, meringue, or bread. But if you’re only an occasional baker—or just don’t have a lot of dough to spend on a stand mixer—do you really need a high-end model?

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45 Comments

  1. Love my Kitchenaid I got in 2004, works great. I saw a review video that shows it rocking when using dough hook. Clearly that person didn't know to lock the mixer head. ATK videos are great as they are by people who read the manuals and know how to properly use the equipment.

  2. Pro Tip: Be sure to use the adjustment screw to raise or lower the attachments to the proper height above the bowl after you buy a mixer. Otherwise, you can have problems with attachments not reaching down far enough. Or attachments scraping on the bowl.

  3. Bought the classic plus based on this video…doesn’t cream butter and sugar without loosening the bowl and lifting and rotating it to scrape the sides. Try to incorporate an egg, it just sits at the bottom of the bowl on top the creamed butter without getting incorporated at all. More scraping, lifting and rotating bowl. It’s nearly worthless. Is ours defective? It doesn’t work at all like the one reviewed here!

  4. Please do a review of the KitchenAid pro 600 … Read a lot of bad things about it such as metal shavings in the food, it sounding like a tank, it's so loud you can't stand to be next to it….

  5. The kitchenaid model you are using in this test (classic) is the lowcost model.
    Literally the base version with bare minimum possible. Like a person buying a house (usually small) in some HOA hell, in a residential street, with minimum yard in front and the back, just to say you own a house…
    Minimum Kitchenaid mixer to use is the 300W Artisan range. Don't cheap out just to buy the barebone, the idea, to brag about owning one but finding out, you need to spend more to buy more stuff to be useful. (and thus ending up spending the same money as the Artisan range)
    Besides the classic isn't recommended for dough. Once or twice in it's life time maybe, but this classic range is for whipping cream and soft stuff for your garden variety beginner that does light cooking in the kitchen.

  6. i am looking to buy 4.5-5 quart mixer that decent enough for bread dough. How is the KitchenAid Classic Plus compare to KSM90 or KS5SS? It seems to me the latest version wattage little misleading.

  7. Don’t like this style of review. Didn’t help at all. I feel like I watched you make a decision for me instead of giving me all of the details from each machine to let me decide for myself. The bottom of the line kitchenaid is simply unaffordable. I needed to know what to expect from the cheaper models that are affordable.

  8. I had (gave it away) a Kitchen Aid and it was too heavy, too tall, and too messy. Flour gets everywhere, the “guard” is clumsy and inefficient. I had to scrape the sides and the bottom. I don’t know what was different with my model but it doesn’t seem the same as the one in this video. It is all metal so I didn’t worry about overheated plastic gears and the attachments are handy. I bouht it because my old Osterizer Kitchen Center kicked the can. I miss the Osterizer, they don’t make those anymore.

  9. I don't understand how this review works. You're using different machines to mix different mixtures. The only way to tell the difference between machines would be to use the exact same mixture and see how they each respond. To me, this is not a valid comparison between machines!

  10. I have a Kitchenaid Artisan. It’s very heavy and mixes great, but it “bleeds” oil into my food. Apparently, the company went to a cheaper way to make it that uses plastic instead of precision metal gears when this one was made. We paid a lot for it and it makes me angry when a company trades on its good name and makes products that aren’t nearly as high quality as they used to.

  11. Time proven KitchenAid remains to be unbeatable. The original design from the 1930s didn't changed at all compared to the current models. Well, slight facelift/cosmetic design compared to the original "K" model. But still the original concept is still present on the newer models. It's an American icon.

  12. They talked about beater clearance. But they didn’t talk about the ability to adjust it. I know the Kitchen Aid mixers have an adjustment screw. On tilt head, you tilt the head up to see the screw in the things. In the bowl lift models you drop the bowl down and it will reveal the screw. Turn it one way and the beater is positioned lower, and the other higher. You put a dime in the bowl and it should move a little on every orbit. Do the other mixers have this adjustment. I can’t believe anyone would release a stand mixer that can’t beat two eggs. Something was wrong.

  13. Wow, l am disappointed i thought America's test kitchens would be honest. I have that exact Bosch mixer I know exactly what it can do and the only thing you showed was the blue lid shame on you that mixer can whip one egg white, well i won't be watching your reviews anymore.

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