the cadillac of mixers

One of my fellow bloggers and lifetime friends has emailed me and asked me to give the ins and outs of my Kitchen aid mixer. Mwah? What do I think of it and why does she need it? Well, you just need it. Does there have to be a reason? I feel that mine doubles as a priceless kitchen tool and a beautiful work of art. ART, I say. That should be enough right there for you to jump on the band wagon.

What can you do with it? More like what can't you do with it? The main and most obvious, mix. Stir, whip, blend. Do you need some fresh whipped cream? You got it. Pull out your handy whisk. Need to make some muffins? Then the paddle is what you want. Egg whites, no problem. (Okay, now I am beginning to feel like that guy on the infomercials that wears the chef hat.) Like to make bread? It comes with a dough hook. Virtually kneads the dough right in front of your eyes.

Those are pretty much the standard things you can do. BUT, it has a bajillion attachments. Like the ice cream maker. Which my husband uses every week. Some fresh cream, vanilla, eggs(if you want)...set it to mix and next thing you know...you have fresh ice cream. It has, are you ready for this one? A pasta attachment. Make the dough, feed it thru the pasta piece and voila....thin, even sheets of pasta dough. Then you can also purchase different pastas cutters. We have the fettucini one. You can grind your own meats, make your own sausages, and strain fruits and veggies. The latter is nice if you are into canning and preserving food. The list goes on and on.

There are, of course, varying sizes that you can get. I have one of the largest. I use it all the time. Really. I can make like dozens and dozens of cookies at once. When you have 3 kids and 2 parents with a sweet tooth that is very important. When we get moved into the new house I am going to be branching out and trying my hand at bread making. Hot, steamy loaves of artisan breads. I am sure I will have to go thru tons of flour and many trials before I get a good loaf, but hey. What's life if you dont have any goals?

The one and only one down side that I can think of for my specific model is that I would really prefer it to have a tilt back head instead of a bowl-lift. The tilt back heads are just easier, I feel, to negotiate and much easier to clean.

So, any recipe, big or small. It can handle the job. Once you try it you will have to have it. Once you have it, you will not know how you ever got along without it.