Two words… ice cream.
Well… I just bought one.
Can’t wait to play with it! I love baking from scratch, and I’m looking forward to learning what I can do with this new toy!
For me this is like every other tool purchase. I can go to Wallyworld and get a $30 circular saw to cut 1xs for shelves, that’ll bog down when I ask it to cut wet pressure treated lumber for a deck. Or I can spend $150 for one that will cut all the lumber to build decks for every house in the neighborhood, every year, for the rest of my life.
Better to have more tool than you need, than need more tool than you have.
CMC fnord!
Like this one (which now, finally, has models for IPS all Kitchenaid models (there’s a video on the site that shows the planetary action too).
In 1936, my grandma somehow managed to scrape together around fifty dollars to buy a Kitchenaid mixer. This was not a frivolous purchase, because my grandpa had bailed on the family and things were dire. I believe she had a payment plan or something, that was a lot of money then.
She needed a way to make a living with small children, and was well-known in her Milwaukee neighborhood for baking wedding cakes at reasonable prices. She used to mix the cakes by hand. The Kitchenaid made her job much easier so she could take more orders, and she managed to make enough money to raise three children alone, working out of her home. Needless to say she put the mixer through its paces for years.
My mom inherited it, and kept it out on the counter. She wasn’t using it for production baking like my grandma, but it still saw heavy use. All through the eighties, Mom and I made crazy huge batches of Christmas cookies and divinity with the mixer. It finally gave out in 1992.
I have one that I bought ten years ago, and it is still going strong through lots of baking. It is not as beefy as the old 1936 model, but has turned out to be worth the money. Enjoy your new mixer. 
I get it now. It’s the small fraction of non-whiteness to me that is baffled by the allure of these things. It’s so clear now! 
I’m no where near serious enough a cook to need something this fancy, but I can see how it might be nice for others.
I just bought a Cuisinart SM-55, which is similar to the Kitchenaid. My thinking was that I would like to make my own bagels, bread, etc but I hate the labour of kneading. So I looked on the web to see what mixers were best and could handle kneading. It came down to the Kitchenaid pro 600 and the Cuisinart. I happened to see the Cuisinart on sale (and they threw in a spare bowl!), so I think you’ll agree that I was pretty much forced to buy it. So if I save, say, a dollar a loaf by making my own bread, the mixer should pay for itself in about 9 years :). Homemade bread tastes better, though, anyways.
Costco has great prices on them, and I’m a huge impulse buyer at Costco. Yet, I’ve never been tempted. I just don’t bake enough to justify the price.
Strangely, I’m more tempted by that sweet little air compressor they have, though I have no idea what I’d use it for.
What she said.
The motion of the head around the bowl winds up slinging enough of the mixture out, and picking it back up again, that it works well enough. You do have to scrape the bowl occasionally with a rubber spatula to make sure everything gets picked up and thoroughly incorporated. YMMV on that, others have reported less of an issue with this.
A hand mixer DOES offer very good control, and I have (and use, frequently) one for any “lesser” task. Cake mixes, whipping cream, beating eggs, etc. - it’s simply less of a hassle all around.
BUT - for ANYTHING heavier-duty, e.g. cookie dough, fruitcake, breadmaking - the Kitchenaid’s power is just perfect. My hand mixer simply doesn’t have the strength to cut through a stiff cookie batter.
I don’t have the counterspace for my Kitchenaid either, which is why it lives in the cellar most of the time. It gets trotted out at holiday time, and other times of the year when I’m doing something that requires the power. The thread I started about buttermilk… let’s just say there’s a bread recipe there that is using my brain to call out to my Kitchenaid 
Tabithina, that’s a great story - you should tell Kitchenaid.
:eek: Thanks for the heads-up - I’ve been waiting for the model for my KitchenAid to be available, and now it is! Cook’s Illustrated preferred this make of scraper-beater over the other main manufacturer’s - I forget the brand name now - due to the effectiveness of the design.
My husband got me my stand mixer at Costco for a Christmas present; not only was it one of the professional-level makes, but it was also at least a hundred dollars cheaper there than elsewhere.
Congrats! What model did you get?
And, let us know when you start getting seduced by the accessories … the half-size bowl … the ice cream bowl … the grinder … 
Are you or your partner handy? My father worked on my mom’s a number of times when it “died”, and he brought it back to life. After 30+ years, she did get a new one, but the old one wasn’t dead when she thought it was.
Woo hoo! One of us, one of us…
I bought mine around 1998 and carried it home on the subway since Macy*s had it for $166. I don’t use it as much as many folks here do, but it’s invaluable for mashed potatoes, French Silk Pie where each egg needs to be beaten for five minutes, Christmas cookies, cheesecake…
I bought my wife one several years ago when they were on super sale one year for Christmas. She used it exactly once a year at Thanksgiving to make a sweet potato soufle that was generally well received, but not worth the headache and the cleaning. Now she’s switched to a different sweet potato recipe for Thanksgiving that doesn’t involve all the mixing, so it is officially a worthless status symbol, like our previous bread maker that was, in my opinion, the world’s worst invention. [rant] My local market has a bakery that makes great fresh bread for less than $3.00 a loaf. But with a breadmaker, I have the advantage of spending $5.00 for the ingredients, plus making a mess and using power, all to make a smaller loaf of bread several hours from now. Wow, and it has the added bonus of taking up counterspace and making the kitchen look totally cluttered. [/rant] Sorry, but no one will ever convince me that all but the most serious chefs need this crap.
I hope you enjoy it.
I bought mine several years ago, but since I don’t cook often, I don’t use it much. But I’m still glad I bought it. As people have said, it lasts a long time, so if I decide to cook more, I’ll have it ready to go.
Wow, do you feel better now that you’ve gotten this off your chest?
It’s true, many people buy kitchen appliances (or exercise equipment, or power tools, or gardening tools, or hobby equipment, or whatever) without really considering if the appliance will be used enough (or with enough enjoyment) to justify the cost.
In your wife’s case the answer is obviously “no.” That doesn’t mean that it’s worthless to “all but the most serious chefs.” In fact, a professional chef probably would not own a KA (they’d have something more powerful/larger), and they CERTAINLY wouldn’t own a bread machine (a unifunction appliance for people who don’t want to actually touch dough).
I can point to another entire BB community I belong to where the majority of members have KAs, amateur cooks all, and who would rather give up a pinky than give up their KA.
So, speak for yourself.
P.S. I am a Southerner and was raised on sweet potatoes and I’ve never even SEEN a holiday sweet potato recipe that required a mixer, much less a powerful stand mixer.
Sister.
I have my late mother’s Sunbeam, and I don’t know what I’d do without it, the three times a year I use it (I have enough cabinet space for my appliances, too), but I think I would be intimidated by a mixer larger than my microwave.
I actually use the compressor more often; filling tires, sweeping the driveway, oh, and nailing … I wish it came with a spade attachment, I’d do some crazy gardening then (I got a dual cylinder on sale because the box was banged up). Actually, it would be great if you could hook the compressor up to run a mixer - Christmas cookies for everyone!
But do you want to make that many decks? The cheaper tool will last some of us the rest of our lives. (Power tools, that is; always go top of the line with hand tools and paint brushes. Now that I think of it, hand tools - my knives - are the best equipment in my kitchen, too.)
The little circular saw my spouse got me our first year together is still running fine (I don’t know if I’ve ever changed the blade …). I do regret that first table saw, but not as much as the guilt inducing detail sander. It did pay for itself, but such a nice little tool does not belong covered in cobwebs in the basement.
My grandmother has a KA from sometime in the '50s. It’s a lovely aqua color, and I’m sure it cost an arm and a leg new. She used it for all of the baking in her restaurant until she retired, and still uses it often.
For Christmas circa 1973, Grandmother bought each of her three daughters a KA. My mom’s still looks new, despite heavy, heavy use for almost 40 years. She finally had to replace the original whisk attachment last year. (And there’s another benefit I hadn’t thought of before: buying a replacement part for Mom’s or Grandmother’s decades-old KAs was no more complicated than heading to the nearby kitchen specialty store. $16.99 plus tax and out the door. No special orders nor scavenger hunts.)
Christmas 2003, I gifted myself with a commercial model, which I found slightly used for $125, IIRC. Cakes, pies, cookie dough, meringues, breads - ideal! If I never use it for anything other than baking, it’s still the bargain of the century. One of my kids will probably inherit, and never have to buy another mixer. It’s really that good.
I got a 5-qt “artisan series” mixer. I know it will come in handy for my cookies. I don’t think it’ll get here till next week, so I have time to think about what I’d like to “break it in” with.