What model do I need? Eg, quart size, how many watts, any colors to avoid? Any other key factors to understand? What key attachments
Lessee, family of 5. We don’t bake much at this time. China Spouse wants to start baking cookies, crepes, whipped cream, scones, biscuits, cheese cake, and who knows what else. I like to make bread and with a stand mixer would start making more multi grain and definately pizza dough, pancakes, etc.
What else would we use it for? Not sure at this point but sure we would figure out some additional uses such as making my veggie burgers, maybe make sausage, pasta.
Do I knead the [beater blade](Introducing the MixerMate™ Bowl and the BeaterBlade® H-20)? What other must have attachments?
China Wife thinks making homemade ice cream is dumb when we can now buy Haagen Daz or Ben & Jerry’s, so I’ll have to sneak in the ice cream maker later. pssst, don’t tell her.
Just get the basic one (not the lift bowl). It comes with the dough hook, the regular beater and the whisk. That’s pretty much all I’ve ever needed, though I did splash out recently for a SideSwipe beater (not made by KitchenAid.) that I love for cake mixes and other light batters. You can add the other attachments as needed. If you buy the deep blue one I will trade you for my rare (ha!) pale yellow one. I’m stuck with this color for life I fear, and it was NOT my choice of color.
I got the scraper attachment too; love it. Also I would avoid white or yellow as too boring. My black one goes with my black/metallic kitchen. I would go either matchy or verrry bold when it comes to colors, although I argue that bright red is the new neutral.
I have a pasta maker attachment, which is nifty, but what I really want is the pasta roller attachment, because I enjoy making homemade tortellini, and rolling out pasta dough by hand is difficult, tedious, and time consuming.
The pasta hook is the only attachment you need to make homemade pasta dough itself, which is just 10 shades of nifty.
I heart my KitchenAide! Mine is white. Goes with everything in the kitchen. It was A hand me down, so I don’t know the specs, but I don’t think it’s the biggest one. I love it.
I have the medium sized one, which I love. The bowl is big enough for a double batch of cookies, and there is power to spare. I think they all come with the paddle, the beater, and kneading hook. The only accessory I’ve bought is the shield, which really helps keeping the kitchen clean, and there’s a slide for adding additional ingredients while you’re mixing.
My parents have the meat grinder attachment, which my father uses for making sausage.
I’d get the biggest one you can afford, especially if you intend to do bread. Doing more than a couple loaves at once in the smaller versions gets problematic. I’m pretty sure I wore out my first Kitchenaid because of the many loaves of whole wheat bread I forced it to knead.
As far as accessories, the ones I use the most are the meat grinder (for sausage) and the pour shield. I have the rotary grinder and pasta maker and juicer. I’ve used the rotary grinder maybe a few times, and never the juicer or pasta maker. The rotary grinder is good if you need to grate a whole lot of cheese, which I rarely do. Pasta maker, I use my hand-cranked Atlas one instead. As far as juice, I’ve never needed any amount of juice that my hand-held juicer is not adequate.
This. I’ve got the Pro 600 and since I prefer(ed, pre Atkins sob) to bake my bread in batches, and even with the 575w, 14cup flour power rating it would strain when making the more dense whole wheat doughs.
As for accessories, I love the grinder and the slicer/shredder.
I think the base model is called the “Classic”; the medium-sized one Maus Magill describes is Ultra Power, which also is the one I have. Next is the Heavy-Duty. Then you get into the professional line like Moonlitherial’s. Mine was a gift, and I love it, but if I were buying my own I would have gotten a Heavy-Duty. I love the pasta rollers and sausage grinder; I don’t make sausage but I make homemade ravioli, and I use it for the filling. If you entertain a lot you might like an ice chipper.
As for bread, I’ve done the Bittman/Artisian bread in 5 type thing for a few years. I only do 6 cups for that and it takes at least 2 bakes to use it up. That’s about the max bread dough I forsee doing in a batch (and less if not a batch), although I will be doing multigrain loaves. We’re not going to do fudge or triple batches of cookies. So, I’m thinking that maybe the entry level one would do the trick. But let me know if that’s just wishful thinking.
ShibbOleth - I think my wife needs a new one (besides craigslist didn’t have any good ones in my area).
The basic (Classic) comes in white or black. Period. The big-ass one comes in all the colors. Definitely get the splatter(spatter) shield if you will be doing baking. If you don’t have one, the flour comes poofing out all over the counter when you add it. I know from experience.
The spatula bladeis a must for cookie dough, etc. It just makes life much easier. I would also get the pour shield, which keeps flour from coating every surface in the room. I use the grinder, but not all that often. I haven’t used the pasta attachments since the first year I got them (lazy git). Dough hook is good.
Except for the shield and the spatula blade (awesome), I would wait until I needed any attachments before getting them. If you really have a burning desire to make pasta or grind meat, then get them, but otherwise you’ll probably not ever use them. (That said, I’ve always craved the meat grinder attachment.) If you already have a food processor, you don’t want to duplicate any functions, like grating cheese.
Unfortunately, I think that limits the selection to the Pro 600 model. But, it should be something that you’ll be able to pass down to your children at some time in the future.
I’ve got a 600 with the default paddle, whip and hook, plus a splatter guard and an extra bowl. Also have the grinder and slicer/shredder. This is a fantastic thing to have if you find yourself needing to mass-produce vast amounts of sliced cucumbers, shredded carrots or whatever. A food processor can only run in small batches, but this thing can run continuously.
Of course, I’ve read past threads including the seminal “I Don’t Need a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer.”
