• Blog
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Nav Social Icons

  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Hospitality
    • Cooking
    • Hosting
    • Household Management
    • Celebrate
    • Basics
  • Lovely Living
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Favorites
    • Hobbies
    • Parenting
    • Personal Care
    • Reflections
  • Recipes
    • Appetizer
    • Main Dish
    • Sides
    • Dessert
    • Breakfast
    • Beverage
  • Chronicles
    • The Lovely Archives
    • Family
    • Hurley House
    • Ina
    • Journals
  • Shop
    • Beauty
    • Closet
    • Cookbooks
    • Gifts
    • Home
    • Kitchen
    • Library
    • Needlepoint
    • Organization
    • Table
  • Blog
  • About
  • Mobile Menu Widgets

    Connect

    Search

  • Hospitality
    • Hosting
    • Household Management
    • Cooking
    • Basics
    • Celebrate
  • Lovely Living
    • Fashion
    • Favorites
    • Hobbies
    • Parenting
    • Beauty
    • Personal Care
    • Reflections
  • Recipes
    • Appetizer
    • Main Dish
    • Sides
    • Dessert
    • Breakfast
    • Beverage
  • Shop
    • Beauty
    • Closet
    • Cookbooks
    • Gifts
    • Home
    • Kitchen
    • Library
    • Needlepoint
    • Organization
    • Table
  • Chronicles
    • The Lovely Archives
    • Family
    • Ina
    • Journals
    • Hurley House
  • About

Do I Really Need A Kitchen Aid Mixer?

June 10, 2020 · In: Cooking, Hospitality

When it comes to required baking equipment, the Kitchen Aid stand mixer (commonly referred to as simply a “Kitchen Aid”) is the crowning jewel of home cooks. Kitchen Aid stand mixers are somewhat of a status symbol, topping wedding registries, displayed proudly on the counter, and likely an assumed possession in most recipes.

But do you really need one?

I have owned a Kitchen Aid stand mixer for twenty years, which I purchased with credit from my wedding registry, and it has served me well. I began cooking twenty years ago as well, which means, my frame of reference is biased. I don’t know what it looks like to bake without a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but I was curious if it really made that much of a difference.

I set out to see for myself. Is this appliance a necessity when baking?

I borrowed a hand-held mixer from a friend (also made by Kitchen Aid) and mixed two batches of the World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. My primary curiosity surrounding mixer performance centered around whether or not a hand-held mixer could adequately cream butter and sugar, which is one of the secrets of really exceptional butter-based cake batters and cookie doughs.

In my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, using room temperature butter, it took around 4 minutes for my butter and sugar to look light and fluffy. Using the hand-held mixer on the same day with equally room temperature butter, the process took almost four times as long. After an arduous and frustrating fifteen minutes, beaters banging around my glass mixing bowl, ricocheting off the sides and occasionally spattering butter chunks onto the counter, my butter and sugar looked light and fluffy-ish. I considered it a technical success with a side of experience-based education.

Here are my conclusions.

First, when using a hand-held mixer, you have to continually stop and scrape the dough from the bowl to keep it going. This is tedious. The beaters bang into the bowl and the batter flies. Which means you have to corral the batter frequently to keep the process moving in the right direction.

Second, when using a hand-held mixer, for lack of a better explanation, I found it to be monotonous and life-draining. Fifteen minutes is a long time to stand and slowly move a mixer around a bowl while also stopping every 45 seconds to scrape. I don’t say this to discourage you, but to let you know what you’re in for. If I were mixing cookies with a hand-held mixer, I would probably make the process more interesting by listening to a podcast.

Third, the hand-held mixer is no help when you add the dry ingredients. It does not have the power to handle the thick dough, so this part needs to be done by hand. This is not the worst news. Mixing dry ingredients by hand can be gentle and will prevent over-mixing.

Lastly, in other tasks, such as whipping cream, beating egg whites, or mixing oil-based batter like a cake mix, the hand-held mixer was a champ. It took more time to achieve the same results as the stand mixer, but it can be done with little effort. It was only in the creaming of the butter and sugar where I saw a huge gap in performance.

So is the experience of using hand-held mixer the same as a stand mixer? No. But can a hand-held mixer achieve the same results? Yes.

Here is what I want you to know. Kitchen Aid stand mixers are great. I love mine, and I am grateful for it. But a Kitchen Aid stand mixer is not needed to make cookies from scratch at home. If you don’t have one, it’s going to be okay. Our grandmothers made cookies for years without stand mixers. It can be done. Even as someone who will remind you over and over that the secret to really delicious baked goods is to make sure you cream your butter and sugar sufficiently, your cookies will still be yummy even if the butter and sugar aren’t light and fluffy.

Maybe that is off brand for me to admit, but it’s true. I love nice things, and high-quality equipment makes a difference. But the point of hospitality is not to have nice things. The point here is to bake cookies at home from scratch as a way to express love and learn something new.

Regardless of what equipment you have (or don’t have), the only thing we truly need is a heart focused on creating space for creativity and connection to emerge. Our need, our place of perceived deficiency, our being without, and our lack of fancy equipment can be avenues for both.

By: Katherine Sasser · In: Cooking, Hospitality · Tagged: recomendation

you’ll also love

Essential Bakeware
My Favorite Pie Baking Supplies
My Favorite Roast Chicken Supplies

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Next Post >

World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Primary Sidebar

Search

Featured Posts

Spring Favorites

New Cookbooks I Am Really Enjoying

My Favorite Pie Baking Supplies

Latest on Instagram

katherinesasser

katherinesasser


See those brass tacks holding my canvas onto that
See those brass tacks holding my canvas onto that wooden frame? 

The wooden frame is made from stretcher bars, and there is a cool little tool I use to install the tacks. The whole set up isn’t complicated, but if you’re a visual learner like me, I made a little video tutorial for you over on the blog!

Elevating the everyday is not about fussy, braggad
Elevating the everyday is not about fussy, braggadocios gestures. It’s about imputing dignity and beauty into otherwise mundane or ordinary occurrences. 

It’s not about perfection. It’s about discovery. 💗

Felt right to wear a dress for Tag Sale Day! Bring
Felt right to wear a dress for Tag Sale Day! Bring on the tablecloths and tea sandwiches…let’s elevate the everyday!

Week Two of the Summer Cookbook Club is complete,
Week Two of the Summer Cookbook Club is complete, and this week was a doozy! Two big recipes with very different results. 

Check out the blog post and video for all the details!

This season’s hottest new accessory is the Ring
This season’s hottest new accessory is the Ring Pop Popsicle! 

Fantastically frosty, subtly sweet, and available in shades sure to make you salivate, this is the seasonal bling you’ve been craving. 😉

Breakfast Salad has become such an integral part o
Breakfast Salad has become such an integral part of my routine that I made it an official blog post, complete with back story, testimonial, and a recipe! Salad for breakfast? Yes please!!


Load More...



Follow on Instagram


Browse by Category

Hi, I'm Katherine

Hi, I'm Katherine
hello!

I share lifestyle content through the lens of hospitality. If you are interested in learning about the beauty that creating space can bring, you've come to the right place!

Read More

Connect

Recent Posts

Summer Cookbook Club: Week 3

Stretcher Bar and Tack Kit Tutorial

Archives

Follow Along

@katherinesasser

See those brass tacks holding my canvas onto that See those brass tacks holding my canvas onto that wooden frame? 

The wooden frame is made from stretcher bars, and there is a cool little tool I use to install the tacks. The whole set up isn’t complicated, but if you’re a visual learner like me, I made a little video tutorial for you over on the blog!
Elevating the everyday is not about fussy, braggad Elevating the everyday is not about fussy, braggadocios gestures. It’s about imputing dignity and beauty into otherwise mundane or ordinary occurrences. 

It’s not about perfection. It’s about discovery. 💗
Felt right to wear a dress for Tag Sale Day! Bring Felt right to wear a dress for Tag Sale Day! Bring on the tablecloths and tea sandwiches…let’s elevate the everyday!
Week Two of the Summer Cookbook Club is complete, Week Two of the Summer Cookbook Club is complete, and this week was a doozy! Two big recipes with very different results. 

Check out the blog post and video for all the details!
This season’s hottest new accessory is the Ring This season’s hottest new accessory is the Ring Pop Popsicle! 

Fantastically frosty, subtly sweet, and available in shades sure to make you salivate, this is the seasonal bling you’ve been craving. 😉
Breakfast Salad has become such an integral part o Breakfast Salad has become such an integral part of my routine that I made it an official blog post, complete with back story, testimonial, and a recipe! Salad for breakfast? Yes please!!
Yesterday in The Lovely I wrote about how I am not Yesterday in The Lovely I wrote about how I am not good at what I call summering.

Summering is when we embrace a season of rest. I am good at daily and weekly recharging, but an entire season of rest? Ummm, not my strong suit.

And so, when faced with something I am not yet good at, I approach it the same way I approach anything else I want to learn. I dive in and do the thing!

If you need me, I will be actively summering. Flubbing it up, figuring it out, and knowing that learning by doing is the way forward.
Lillian chose a smoky purple. Norah went with a pu Lillian chose a smoky purple. Norah went with a punchy pink. And I stuck with my favorite red. Let flip flop season begin!

Copyright © 2022 ·