dallas moore

KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer (KSM150PSBU)

I like to bake from time to time. I also like gadgets. Whenever you watch a cooking show that involves baking, you’ll see the cook in question turning to a stand mixer time and time again. You can see why they’re used. What’s not to like? Just add your baking ingredients in order while the stand mixer handles the monotonous part … the mixing.

When I went on my search for a stand mixer, I simply chose what I saw everywhere. My philosophy? If that many different professionals turn to a particular brand, isn’t it the right thing to use? Well, maybe you can say KitchenAid provides them to those shows for marketing purposes. I kinda disagree. KitchenAid models are just too “everywhere”. I was watching The Exorcist that my Tivo decided to record for me. What was that I saw in the background during a scene in the kitchen? A stand mixer … KitchenAid style. You watch any sitcom and look at the kitchen? They’ll have a KitchenAid mixer there for looks. It’s just a cultural thing that’s easily recognized by shape. It’s also what I’d consider a lifetime appliance.

Some appliances you use a lot and eventually get worn out. I’ve replaced many a toaster, toaster oven, and microwave. But stand mixer, especially a well built one, is going to last for a long long time. When asking around with some more mature (older) people, I found out that lots of people have KitchenAid mixers. On tope of that they they got them ages ago. They still have that same one working year after year without fail.

There are two basic types of stand mixers manufactured by KitchenAid. One has a bowl that moves up and down using a lever, the other tilts the mixer head back for bowl access. I chose the latter for one reason, it has cleaner lines. Once i made that decision, my next choices were bowl capacity followed by power. Based upon the “bigger is better” philosophy, I went for the 5 quart bowl versus the smaller options. As far as power, I knew this was more of a hobby purchase, so I chose a decently powered 325 watt model. That’s enough power to handle my cake and cookie making. Yeah, as a guy, I make cakes and cookies … what about it?

One choice you get to make with KitchenAid appliances is color. I didn’t want a generic black or white model, nor did I want the apparently popular “look at my stand mixer” fire engine Red. I chose a the dark subtle (and masculine damnit!) Cobalt Blue. This was a twofold strategy. KitchenAid makes a TON of colors for their stand mixers. However, when you start looking at other products of theirs, they don’t have so many colors in their palette. In fact, if you were to look for colors that they seem to use for everything, it would be black, white, red, and of course blue. Try to find that KitchenAid ice cream scoop in “pistachio green” or “majestic yellow”. Ooops… you’ll usually find black and white in huge numbers, red in quantity because it doesn’t sell well, then the rather scarely stocked but still availble blue.

Well, now that I have stated I’ve followed the herd in brand and chosen a manly color. How does that sucker work? It just does. Mixing by hand, you can get lumps if you’re not careful. With a stand mixer, the only thing you can call work is stopping periodically to scrape the sides of the bowl down and then cleaning up when done.

That’s the only caveat with the mixer though … scraping the sides down. I can understand it though so it works fine. The mixer has to have a clearance gap otherwise it would be metal mixing attachment scraping metal bowl. This is my personal most unpleasant sound I can hear. It is also something that would quickly screw things up. So to keep from having these metallic objects collide, there’s a gap. Where there’s a gap, stuff can not get mixed in. So every once in awhile you have to take a rubber spatula and scrape down the sides. It takes a couple of seconds.

On the plus side? No lumps equals a unified consistency of whatever it is you are preparing. That’s a definite plus when baking. Everything gets distributed evenly. Cookies come out the same from first to last, cakes don’t get pocket balls of flour, muffins have about the same number of blueberries.

Once I’m done with the mixer, I can throw the bowl in my dishwasher (it washes great). The attachment does have to be washed by hand, but that takes about 30 seconds. The mixer itself can be cleaned quickly with a sponge and towel if it gets a little dirty. It cleans up great and looks cool on the countertop when not in use.

This appliance takes the one inaccurate thing out of baking (mixing the ingredients well) and in return gives you better results. Everything I bake comes out perfect now, which is great!