I honestly don't know how I survived before acquiring a stand mixer! There are several other brands out there, but nothing compares to a KitchenAid. There are a wide range of attachments that you can add to your mixer which makes it a platform you can build to meet your needs. I personally don't enjoy clutter on my kitchen counters so most everything has a home in a cabinet somewhere, but my KitchenAid has its own esteemed place on display.
We purchased our Artisan series 5 Quart Tilt-head mixer in Imperial Grey used but in great shape. I don't the the previous owners ever really used it. The finish on it is textured and feels very durable. We decided on this finish due to its easy cleanup and the matte finish does not show fingerprints. It comes with a 5 Quart mixing bowl with handle and three mixing attachments. The included attachments will handle most of the mixing jobs that you can throw at them. There is a for whipping and mixing, a dough hook for kneading, and a beater for....beating?
The mixer itself is very heavy and weighs in at nearly 25 lbs. The head tilts up so that you can lock in the mixing bowl or change attachments. Care should be used when moving the mixer. Make sure that if you grab it by the head to move it, that the head is locked in place. If not, the base will drop down you can spill things out of the bowl. One locked in, you turn the mixer on by moving the sliding switch on the left side towards the front of the mixer. This is a 10 speed mixer and the switch has little clicks along the way to help you know what speed you are in. The mixing attachment will spin and also orbit around the bowl.
The power of a KitchenAid mixer is hard to compare if you have only used a hand mixer before. Heavy or dry ingredients just don't slow it down. It just powers through mixing things, even heavy things like cookie doughs.
Kitchen-Aid Attachments
As I mentioned above, Kitchen-Aid mixers are designed so you can add attachment to increase the usefulness and versatility. Kitchen-Aid stand mixers are compatible with attachments made all the way back to the current versions design in 1937. This means there are 80 years worth of attachments out there just waiting to be discovered and put to work in your kitchen. I don't use a lot of attachments for my Kitchen-Aid yet, but there are two items that I do use a lot.
Kitchen-Aid Flex-Edge Beater
The first is a Flex-Edge Beater which helps scrape the sides of the bowl while mixing. This Beater has a rubber wiper on one side that helps incorporate things stuck to the side of the bowl back into the mix. And it keeps me from having to take a rubber spatula to the bowl while mixing. I can walk away and do other stuff. I believe Kitchen-Aid sells a flex-edge with two rubber wipers also, but I have not ordered one of those yet.
Kitchen-Aid Pasta Roller & Cutters
A pasta roller? On a Keto diet? We received a pasta set as a gift. We used them a few times to make fresh fehttuchini and soup noodles back before starting our Keto adventure. Since going Keto, we stashed our pasta kit in the back of the cupboard and forgot about it.
Our pasta kit has two main parts, a fehttuchini cutter and a dough roller. The dough roller has five thickness settings which gives you control over how thick your doughs are. Like I said, we had stashed our kit in the back of the cupboard thinking we wouldn't really ever use them again. But then Mrs. Recipe Junkie found some recipes for crackers and tortilla chips. We were struggling to roll out the crackers to a consistent thickness.
Pasta attachments are meant to be kept dry. As such you can wipe down with a slightly damp cloth after use, but you should never wash them. And if you are following the directions with them, you should never really need to.
Our Attachment Wish List
There are a huge variety of attachments that we want to add to our collection. There is an ice-cream maker that we want to get to make Keto friendly deserts. I would also enjoy a meat grinder to make sausages and jerkies without having to pull out my big grinding setup.
Another essential attachment for a Keto kitchen is a Spiralizer so you can make Zoodles!
If you don't already have a stand mixer of some type, a KitchenAid should be your top priority. It will change the way you cook!
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