Kitchen Alchemy

If you’re a regular reader you might remember this time last year I did a road test for the Sunbeam Mixmaster and the Kenwood Patissier bench top mixers. And I lamented in that story that I’d never bought a Kitchenaid when I should have. Well late last year I was fortunate enough to score a second hand Kitchenaid KMS90 for a bargain price – one which had only ever been used twice. I’ve been working with my Kitchenaid for about six months now, and I’ve decided it’s time to report on the performance of this machine. Excellent! Excellent! Excellent! Excellent! Excellent! Excellent! Excellent! Excellent! That’s the only way to describe it. Because it was second hand, the Kitchenaid showed up with no manual and only one attachment – the standard whisk beater. Having seen what can happen to the same attachment on the Kenwood Patissier, I quickly bought the flat paddle attachment from Pulp Kitchen and installed it as the default attachment. The number one thing I use my Kitchenaid for is mak

Back in 2003 when I began my most recent baking odyssey, I acquired a Sunbeam Mixmaster – the remake of the classic retro mixer from the fifties. My mother had a Mixmaster which she bought in the seventies, and which I did most of my cake baking with as a teenager (when the obsession truly took hold). She still has that Mixmaster today, although it is significantly worse for wear – the plastic cover over the light is broken and they haven’t made the bulbs for years, so there’s a “live” cavity where the light bulb should be. I can vouch for that because I stuck my finger in there accidentally last year and got a nice shock from it. I paid quite a lot of money for my Mixmaster and it held pride of place on my kitchen bench for three years. That is until I had it running one Sunday and one of the motors blew up! I discovered that the twin motor “600 watt” power it claimed worked in two ways: 1. to run the beaters; 2. to turn the turntable the bowl sits on. After seeing flames shooting fro