A couple years ago, I got a hand mixer. I rarely use it, since I don’t bake often and only sometimes use it for other things (I use it to beat eggs, mostly, for use in quiches). More importantly, I rarely use it because it hates me. I can’t use it, even on the lowest setting in a large bowl, without it shooting egg or batter or whatever all over the place. It’s very annoying, since I can’t afford a stand mixer and it’s either the hand mixer or lots and lots of elbow grease whenever I do want to make something, and sometimes of course just doing it by hand simply won’t work, like today when I made cheesecake. It took forever for the stuff to stop shooting out of the beaters–I basically shot cream cheese all over a corner of my kitchen until the stuff was practically liquid and then it finally started to mix nicely. Any tips, or should I put plastic sheeting throughout my kitchen before giving up entirely?
Use a deeper bowl. Get whisk or paddle attachments instead of beater blades.
Make sure the sides of your bowl are straight up and down, not sloped.
Buy your mixer some flowers and sweet talk it.
Deeper bowl, as others have said, and make sure you’re holding it upright, not at an angle.
cut a narrow “U” shapped slot out of a paper plate. place it over the bowl with the beater shafts inside the slot… instant splatter cover…
hope this helps
FML
Unfortunately, some hand mixers just don’t have a good “slow” or “fold” speed. A while back, we bought one of the Sunbeam Mixmaster “heritage” jobbies, and its slowest speed should be re-labeled as “fling”
So, it went back and was replaced with a KitchenAid - $70 may be at the high end for a hand mixer, but if you can afford it, it’s a good pick. It’s got a truly low speed, plus power to churn through stuff.
Also, wait until your cream cheese or butter is at room temperature. This can take some time… and get a deeper bowl.
When I don’t use my standing mixer, I prefer to handmix things. Waiting an hour or so (for things to soften) can make a recipe so much easier.
I’ll second the KitchenAid hand model. I’ve had mine for years. Excellent speed control, and a very strong motor for a hand model. It’ll mix Townhouse (Nestles) chocolate chip cookie dough. Yummm.
Peace,
mangeorge
This is some kind of Oster. I actually tried the whisk and dough hooks it came with and neither of them are any better than the standard beaters. It also came with something that has two little disks about an inch apart–I think it’s for mixing drinks, but honestly I’m afraid to use it. It was a Christmas gift and that’s all I know about it. I think that if I put in on the highest speed with the “power boost” and could figure out how to stick a drill bit in it I could get rid of my cordless drill. This thing pulls more RPMs than a race car at redline.
As the first child permanently out of the house (and the one that will actually cook), I got a lot of my parents’ (and I guess really my mother’s) old stuff. My dishes are the Corelle (made by Corning) dishes my parents got when they married 35 years ago, the flatware and glasses are old stuff that had been bought at Costco and the like, I’ve got a fair amount of Tupperware (and this is genuine Tupperware) that they had for as long as I can remember, and so on. The mixing bowls are Mom’s old set of Pyrex-made (but not borosilicate glass), the knives are the old set of Cutco (though I did get to send them back for sharpening first), the crock pot is in that shade of orange that makes me think it’s older than I am and is that annoying high cylinder shape, and I’m pretty sure the deep-fat fryer is older than me as well. I know the electric frying pan was my grandmother’s, I’ve got one of those griddle thingies that goes on the electric range (and I swear it came with their current house), and I’m a little surprised that they didn’t try to unload the wok (which I have never seen used) and the fondue pot on me.
Actually, as you can see, I’m pretty well-equipped in some ways (especially for a single guy) and massively deficient in others. And even the stuff I do have doesn’t match in any way, shape, or form unless it’s part of a larger internal set (e.g., some of the pots and pans and the springform pans) or all from the same company that I bought seperately earlier (like my Pyrex casserole/baking dishes.) I don’t have any non-sloping mixing bowls, for instance. Anyway, if my choices are spending $70+ for a new hand mixer or just saving up $200 or $300 for a stand mixer, wouldn’t I be better off eventually getting the stand mixer?
Yes. If you can’t do it any other way, save up for a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer.
Yes, but bw sure you get a good stand mixer. Some have the same problem as your hand model, lousy speed control.
I have, and use, both and they are KitchenAides. There are other good brands too.
If you have access to Consumers Reports. online or magazine, that’s one place to get info and ratings. Most libraries have the mags.
They rate KA high for both types.
If you are going to buy a stand-mixer, there is no reason not to get the very best. Kitchen-Aid beats them all.
You forgot your 3rd choice: spend $15 on a deep bowl at Target. Actually, if metal-on-metal doesn’t bother you, you can get deep sided metal mixing bowls, marked for volumes, for about $5.
I inherited my mixer from my Grandma. I don’t know who made “Betty G” or when, but it pretty much has 4 speeds: fast, strong, superfast, and superstrong. Its not a problem with the right kind of bowl.