Why are these things so awesome? What would I be doing with it? Do I need one? I see one on sale and feel like I MUST buy it and I don’t know why.
Can anyone tell me what these things are actually good for, and whether I want one or I"m just swept up in marketing?
Steel construction, will last for probably your lifetime. It can mix bread dough, make sausage, make pasta, and grind and case your sausage for you. For bakers and cooks, it’s pretty much the ultimate machine. Yes, I have one, and it performs as advertised.
Alton Brown has one. I had been wanting one for awhile. That put me over the top.
I don’t have a customized one with flame decals, though.
I think they’re only for the Very Serious and Enthusiastic Cook. Which I’m not. Plus, I have no place to store it in my oh-so-tiny kitchen. I’ll leave all that cool shit to the people who can really get their money’s worth out of it. And they ARE cool. They look positively scrumptious!
You want one because all white people do.
I’m not big into dessert baking but a staple food of mine is chapati, a flatbread that requires kneading I don’t seem to be capable of doing manually. When I make it, I also tend to make larger batches and freeze. However, since I’m only interested in breadmaking I’d probably just get a high end breadmaker like the zojirushi. I think the stand alone mixer is really great if you’re also into things like grinding your own meats and such, as I understand it comes with a number of attachments.
Get your flame decals right here!
Because it’s a manly appliance. The mixer we have (with sausage grinder and cheese grater attachment) is Ivylad’s toy. I could get along with a regular hand mixer, but no…we had to research horse power and gadgets.
I have one of those cast-iron-and-plated hand-cranked meat grinders, which most often gets used for making shepherd’s pie. Something with a motor would be slightly easier (though the hand-cranked one isn’t difficult at all).
I’m planning on getting a Kitchenaid eventually. It will make it easier for me to knead doughs, and Alton Brown has given me ideas for other uses.
I have one that was given to me by my mother when she bought a new one. I’ve no idea why she wanted a new one since the things are practically indestructable. The one I’ve got has to be at least forty years old and maybe older; for all intents and purposes, it is now retired.
If the contents of your fridge are some beer and the doggie bag from dinner four nights ago - you probably don’t need one.
If your idea of baking is to open up the Betty Crocker cake mix - you probably don’t need one.
If the thought of “whip egg whites until stiff” leaves you merely amused at the sexual preferences of egg whites, but with no other idea of what that phrase might mean - you don’t need one.
If you’ve been baking from scratch without one (and they are useful for cooking at times as well), you will wonder how you ever survived with a hand mixer or a lesser stand mixer.
If it’s indestructible, why is it retired?
There are different lines of KA mixers, and the KA of today is not the same as the KA of yesteryear. The less expensive ones have smaller bowls and some plastic parts, and have lower wattage. The higher the price, the more watts, and the increasing liklihood of all-metal construction and larger bowls. Also, there are models that are tilt-head (those tend to be the less expensive ones) and models that are lift-bowl.
In general, a stand mixer is a good thing to have if you have the space. If you only use a mixer for lighter things (cake batter, single batches of cookies) then the less expensive ones (like the Artisan line) are fine. The more heavy-duty things you make or want to make, the more powerful version you want to get.
Other powerful mixers worth looking at are Viking and Cuisinart – they would be equivalent to the highest-end KAs.
Having said that, the current rage for KAs is due to a couple of things: First, they expanded the line and starting putting them out in cool colors as if they were Fiestaware, where they used to come only in white. Second, it’s part of the general trend for people who want a kitchen full of expensive professional (or professional-looking) appliances regardless of whether they actually use them or not.
Because they are simply a kitchen’s best friend. Mine died two weeks ago. I cried real tears. I have considered writing poetry in it’s honor. I have never known anyone else to have their’s break, but I have put mine through it’s paces. It’s 15 years old and has been used more than 3 times a week from the start. That’s at minimum 2300 uses, from bread (three loaves at a time!), pizza dough, dinner rolls, whipped fudge, chocolate chip cookies, cookies, cheese cake, birthday cakes . . . sigh.
I don’t know how I will live without mine until we can afford to replace it.
You need one just so my poor broken heart knows there’s a little more KA love in the world. 
Lots of excellent reasons right here why you shouldn’t waste your money on one.
I’ve never used one nor seen one used.
How do things just just end up clumping up around the blades and then spinning around? How do things get mixed evenly?
I love the control of my hand mixer, so I’m having trouble envisioning how the Kitchen Aid model works.
Can someone who has explain how they work? I don’t have the counter space, but I can certainly whip up (heh) some envy.
Fooey!
I can’t live without mine. When I was just out of college I had a hand mixer, but it was wimpy and slow and I eventually burned out the motor. I love my KitchenAid, it’s my #1 appliance. I have the grating attachments as well, love those too.
My brother has one he got from our grandmother, and it’s still working great. My mom’s is at least as old as I am, still works great.
The beater both spins and rotates around the bowl – like how the earth spins on axis and rotates around the sun. So you’ll have to scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally, depending on what you’re making, but it will definitely mix everything.
Traditional stand mixers had (have) the two beaters stationary, but the bowl platform was off-center. The beaters spun together like your hand mixer, and the bowl spun, so the beaters moved through the mixture in a circle 'round the bowl.
The KA (and other high-end) mixers use something called “planetary action.” (They used to have a video on the KA web site that demonstrated this, but it seems it’s gone now.)
With KAs, the bowl is stationary and doesn’t spin. There is ONE attachment (a whisk, a flat beater, or a dough hook) and spins on its axis, while it also rotates around the bowl. Just like a planet. You do still have to scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula occasionally, but that’s true of any mixer, stand or hand, I’ve ever used. There are now some flat beaters that have rubber flanges on the sides that scrape the bowl sides while beating. I haven’t tried 'em, though.