Stand Mixers: a Review

When I left home, I spent about 9 months in a college dorm the size of a postage stamp. That I shared. And they didn't allow so much as a hotplate in the room. So needless to say, I lived on things that could be microwaved that year (and ice cream, because who can resist ice cream at -40 degrees F in Fairbanks?). When I came back to Anchorage and actually had my own kitchen, the first thing I thought I really needed was a stand mixer. My mom has ALWAYS had a mixer on the counter. She still has the one my dad bought her the fall after I was born (1984) from the cannery in Larsen Bay. It was a larger, very heavyduty commercial one that had only been used for one summer! And she STILL has it. It has been through more crap than any other mixer I know. We've ground a TON of meat (not lately, but I distinctly remember doing it often while I was younger), ground lots of cheese, and used it for mashed potatoes, cakes, cookies, etc. And it's still in great shape, at 27 years old!

So, naturally, the first larger purchase for my kitchen was a mixer. It was a pretty cobalt-blue kitchenaid. And I loved it. At first. Then it broke a couple years after I got it. I got it fixed....pretty simple fix, but it was somewhere around $75! Then a year later, again. Another $75. Then less than a year after that, again. I was so fed up with it...But, I lived with it because I couldn't see shelling out a good chunk of money on a new mixer. And, I knew I didn't want a kitchenaid....but I didn't know what I wanted.

But lo and behold (I knew this was my present, actually), I got a new mixer for Christmas! George and I had really researched brands, reviews, prices, etc. We both fell in love with the functionality and SIZE (i's a 7 qt!) of the Cuisinart! It's beautiful, too:

I immediately got it out of the packaging and once it warmed up (George hid it in his car!), I made a batch of cookies. The bowl was so enormous, it looked like I'd barely made anything! And if you know my family, you know that NOTHING is SMALL, especially when it comes to cooking and baking. Every Oberg recipe has to feed at least a small army (as I remembered last week when I made a batch of bread dough with an Oberg recipe I'd never made, and it yielded 5 loaves! And yes, the mixer did great, even with over 10 cups of flower). And, naturally, I'm an Oberg at heart! There isn't a recipe I've found yet that even comes close to filling this bowl up, and I love it! Plus, it has that handy "shield" so the flour doesn't "pouf" up and cover your countertops!

And even at this moment, I'm baking off a batch (actually a half batch...) of cookies for Koda's 1st grade parent lunch today!

Final word: Kitchenaid, NO.......Cuisinart, YES!