Food Mixer Buying Guide

While a food mixer is designed to mix, knead, or combine ingredients together, a food processor is used for chopping, slicing, dicing, and grating. Food processors often include multiple attachments designed for different food types. Depending on the type of food mixer, such as the aforementioned KitchenAid Artisan, the lines between food mixer and food processor can become blurred. This allows one appliance to perform many of the functions of multiple appliances. 

A hand mixer is ideal for the weekend baker who regularly whips together scones, packet mix cakes, and pancake batter. These mixers are a safe bet for anyone who is unsure of where to start with a home mixer. Hand mixers usually come with beaters for cakes and icing, and with dough hooks for making small amounts of dough, such as that required for a pizza base.

Let your creativity flourish. These standalone mixers come with large capacity bowls, and their motors are more powerful than those of hand mixers. They are generally packaged with three standard attachments: beaters for cakes and cookies; dough hooks for bread, pasta, and pizza bases; whisks for airing cream and fluffing egg whites.

Kitchen mixers are designed to prepare high-volume batches. Their formidable bowl size, sturdy construction, and multi-purpose functionality combine to elevate them as statement pieces in your kitchen. These tireless workers will even make light work of your Christmas pudding. Kitchen mixers can come with up to five mixer attachments in the box, and some models will have a port on the front for additional attachments such as pasta rollers, spiralizers, and food slicers, just to name a few.

There are three types of mixers: hand, stand, and kitchen. Before we delve into the specifics of each type, here are some key considerations to kickstart your process of narrowing down options:

- Stand mixers are available in two mixing styles, and the choice ultimately comes down to user preference. The first and most common is planetary, whereby the beaters rotate around a stationary bowl. This functionality is perfect for dough and heavy loads; however, it can sometimes be difficult to add ingredients if the beater is moving quickly. The alternative mixing style uses off-centre beaters in a bowl that rotates. This allows for the easy addition of ingredients, and these mixers normally come with two bowls for various loads.

- Stand mixer wattage can vary greatly between models and brands. Keep in mind that wattage alone doesn’t have a great bearing on a mixer’s ability. It’s more indicative of the type of motor that has been engineered for the mixer, and should be considered in combination with torque and brand technology. Premium stand mixers will have sense technology, whereby the motor senses resistance on the beater and will electronically adjust the speed and power accordingly. This, in turn, reduces motor stress when mixing on a low speed with a heavy load.

- Nearly all stand mixers will operate with a tilt-head lever. This lifts the beater and the motor out of the mixing bowl, allowing you to remove attachments or the bowl itself, or to check the consistency of your mixture. The alternative construction is a bowl lever, which lifts the bowl towards the mixing beater and locks it into position. This is found on some of our bigger kitchen mixers.

- Having a choice of mixing speeds doesn’t necessarily mean faster mixing, but having more speed options allows for smoother acceleration without jolting. Variable speed dials are easier to operate with sticky fingers, and some mixers will have electronic timers to prevent you from turning cream into butter.

The most standard, commonly used attachment is your beater or K beater. This tool is perfect for making cake bases or for mixing heavy ingredients like cookie crumble or Christmas pudding. Conversely, it is also capable of producing the silkiest cake icing.

Pizza, pasta, and homemade bread all start with a consistent, thoroughly mixed dough. The dough hook makes light work of dough, producing results that can’t be replicated by hand.

Aerating cream or making a meringue can have you whisking away for ages. Using the balloon whisk on a high speed will add aeration and save you a heap of time.

To prevent ingredients sticking to the bowl, some brands will have a scraper beater or silicone beater. As the beater moves around the bowl, it wipes with every rotation. Say goodbye to stopping and wiping the bowl with a spatula.

A folding tool is a unique attachment for mixing ingredients while avoiding aeration. This tool is especially useful when a recipe requires mixing by hand, but when the dispersion of ingredients needs to be even. 

The best food mixer/bench mixer depends on your mixing needs, what you want to create, and the different functions/features you may utilise during the mixing process. With different selections of beater attachments, bowl sizes, power considerations, distinctive designs, and speed control, each food mixer can each bring something different to the table.