I have a KitchenAid Artisian, and I HATE it! It can barely make two batches of cookie dough without the motor acting up, and when it does act up, the attachement gets all black and greasy, and into my batter! I also feel like the batter is always rising up to the atachement too, and not staying down in the bowl. Argh...

So, I am looking at:

Maybe a more powerful KA, although I am leary...
A Cuisinart stand mixer
A Bosch Mixer

Any thoughts or suggestions???

I just purchased a Cuisinart. I haven't had the chance to use it but only a couple of times, but I'm very happy with it. Hope that helps.

Sorry you are having trouble with your KA.
I have one, and I love it. That being said, my SIL had similar problems with hers. She contacted KA customer service and they were very helpful. I can't remember what they did to fix it, but hers is fine now.

The only other stand mixer experience I have is with my mom's ancient Oster so I'm not much help with suggestions of those other brands.

I have a KitchenAid 600 Series mixer and wouldnât trade it for anything

Kitchaide Professional 5 Plus. Loves it!

I also use a Kitchen Aid Artesian have had no problems thus far- but I've not done excessive mixing yet. (I use it mostly for icing, etc). It was a Christmas gift from my Inlaws, and I was using a $20.00 piece of cr_p hand mixer before, so it's like a dream come true.
I'll keep it in mind though... and watch for any problems.

Sorry to hear you are having problems.

I have 2...the Kitchenaid Artisan, love it, love it love it....have had it about 10 years.....have never had a problem with it.....I also have a Wolf Gang Puck stand mixer with 700 hp, that I purchased at Sam's Club about 3 years ago........I love it too, only more than the Kitchenaid........I have been known to have btoh of them going at the same time when I had lots to get done.... I wouldn't trade either one of them.

I received a Kitchen Aide 5 qt. for xmas last year. I hadn't even had it a month before the lock wouldn't go down all the way to hold the head down, then the silver pin on the side keeps coming out and I have to literally knock it back into place, now, just the other day the black peice that is the knob to turn the speed up and down with broke!!!
To beat it all, (keep in mind it was an xmas present from dear darling BF who did his best), he threw the receipt away so I wouldn't know how much it cost.
I couldn't register it, couldn't return it, and couldn't get my rebate..........

I am using a Sunbeam Mix master that my husbands parents bought me for my birthday when I started doing cakes. So far, it has really done well for me. I would like to get a KA one day. But right now, I don't do a lot of cakes to justify for the cost of one.

I have 2 KA's - 4.5 qt. Classic and a 6 qt. Pro 600. I really like them both. Sorry to hear you are having trouble. I'd call Kitchen Aid and see what can be done. I think my 600 is a little noisy. Does anyone else have that problem? Thought about calling KA to see if it was normal. My 4.5 qt. is not noisy at all. I too have had both going at the same time.

I ordered my qt. in April and the "gift" was a free ice cream freezer attachment. Got it today and can't wait to try it out!

After doing a lot of research, I purchased a Kenwood Chef Classic a year and a half ago and absolutely love it! It has been extremely reliable and easy to use. I recently spent some time at my mom's and used her KA to make 2 cakes and found it to be very awkward to use. All the controls are on one side of my Kenwood, the speed of the mixer is extremely easy to control, and it isn't top-heavy like the KA. The only thing I would change is the bowl size - I purchased the smaller size mixer thinking it would be big enough, but now wish I had purchased the larger mixer. Kenwood is a UK brand (although they do sell in the US under the name DeLonghi), so they are sometimes hard to find, but well worth it if you can get your hands on one!

I got tired of fighting with amount of batter and tough cookie dough bit the bullet and bought a 10qt Anvil. LOVE IT!!!!!nI figured as much as I would be using it , I would eventually outgrow the KA's. I found a great online store for all my kitchen stuff...and they ship in 1 day!

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/fourth777/mixers-accessories.html

I still love my 6 qt KA. Although I don't do as much baking as many here, it still does what I need it to do

Paula

I've had a kenwood 6 qt. 1200 watt for about 5-6 years and I still LOVE it! Never a problem...works really well!

I have a KA that I bought in 1981 (4.5) and It's never given me a problem. I use it all the time for kneading bread, mixing frosting and making pasta. I actually had to buy a new paddle, I wore the coating off the original one!!! Guess after 27 years I've gotten my money's worth. I'm considering buying a larger refurbished one for bigger batches.

I have 2 KA's, a 4.5 and a 6qt pro they both work great but, my favorite mixer of all time was my Oster Kitchen Center. The bowl spun with the beaters. it was deep and wide, overall it was just more convenient. When I got my first KA it seemed awkward and really took getting used to.

Jibbies

I have 2.

The first one is an ancient Oster kitchen center, that must be at least 15 years old, and I love it..I use it only for icing now, cause when the motor is under a heavy load like cookie dough, you can smell the plastic melting or something!

The second one is a Kitchen Aid 6 quart Professional series. I love it for it's capacity, I can get 3 full mixes in there with room to spare, and its heavy duty motor lets me do thick heavy cookie doughs with ease. I don't use it for icing, because it gets a lot more air bubbles in my icing, and I try to keep it as smooth as possible.

As far as the attachments getting black and getting into your batter, I know that will happen if you put the attachments into the dishwasher. It happened to me too, but after I started hand washing them, it didnt happen anymore.

Hope this helps, and Good Luck!

I have the KA Accolade it is great, I have made pasta and stuffed sausages with it even.

I have the Sunbeam Mixmaster, which was inexpensive and works fine. As a matter of fact, I just got thru making 2 gallon bags of icing for a wedding cake this weekend.

I will one day get me a larger/better mixer, but for now its the Sunbeam and as I said, it works great.

Happy shopping to ya.

I have a 5 Qt. KA and a 7 Qt. Viking. My Viking is much more powerful.
I have enjoyed both.

-Debbie B.

6qt. KA. I really do like it. I went from a Sunbeam stand mixer to it, and it has taken me some time to get accustomed to using it. I was used to the bowl spinning with the beaters and being able to stick my spatula in there to scrape the bowl as it was spinning. Now I can't do that, but it's okay. Also, my sunbeam was a tilting head mixer and my new one is a lift mixer. I'm not really crazy about that, but, once again, I'm used to it now. It is a workhorse and can mix up a huge batch of icing with no problem.
I really wanted the Cuisinart, but I couldn't justify the price when I could get this one for $150 less.

7qt Viking, 10qt Hobart.

Mike

I have 3: a Wolfgang Puck stand mixer, an older KA 5 qt pro, and a Cuisinart 5.5qt. My KA was refurbished and the motor went out, so until I figure out how to get that fixed, my KA is out of commission. I hate the Wolfgang Puck! The paddle doesn't reach the bottom of the bowl so it doesn't mix well at all. The Cuisinart is great though.

Thank you for all of the replies! I did call about my KA, and customer service was less than helpfull. I don't know much about the Viking mixers, and didn't even know Wolfgang Puck had his own mixers!

I don't need anything too hard core at this point, but I do want a miver that I can make more than 1 batch of something with, without any issues.

I am totally jealous of some of the serious professional mixers some of you have, by the way!

I have a KA 6 quart Professional and a Bosch Universal. I love and use both of them but if I had to choose the Bosch would win hands down. The only thing I don't like about it has been changed with the new version so it would be a moot point to tell you about it!

Since others have the KA I'll talk about the Bosch. Since it has a belt drive motor at the base of the machine you can do thick dough and it won't even blink at you. We're talking I grind my own wheat into flour and make truly whole grain breads. My family teases me that there are nuts, seeds, rocks, twigs and small woodland creatures in the bread I make so you can imagine how thick the dough is. I killed a KA with it once (stripped the plastic gears).

My Bosch is a couple of years old and has take everything I've thrown at it. It has a plastic bowl but whips egg whites like a dream (even just one!) I love the two part lid too. It has an outer ring and an inner circle, both of which are removable. Adding things to the machine is a snap with this set up but when you put them back on you do not dust your entire kitchen with flour or sugar!

I always make the WASC in my Bosch using the following steps:

1. Put all dry ingredients in the bowl. Put the lid on and turn to speed one for about 30 seconds to mix dry stuff.

2. Add all the wet stuff, put the lid on and pulse on speed one to keep the splash factor down. (This isn't necessary as the lid keeps all the stuff in there but then I'd have to scrape the lid off and mix some more.)

3. After one swoop around the bowl with the spatula (Just the edges, I don't bother with the bottom of the bowl and it never leaves unmixed stuff) I run on speed one for 2 minutes.

Done!

In case you didn't catch it with all my rambling, I LOVE THIS MACHINE!!

My 14 year old is the designated cookie baker and has already told us for a wedding gift if she doesn't already have one she wants a Bosch.

Fran... my best friend's grandmother had a Bosch, and has had it for at least 20 years. My friend recentlvisited her, and fell in love w/ the mixer!

The only thing I don't like is that it is not sold in stores, so I don't have a chance to look at it in person before purchasing it. Plus, I would have to buy it online and pay for shipping, etc.

The new Bosch has an 800 watt motor while the one I have has a 700 watt (which is why I like the two piece lid! You could really make a mess with this thing! lol)

lasvegasmomma, most of the sites I've seen have free shipping so that shouldn't be an issue. There is a Bosch yahoo group that you can join and ask bazillions of questions. Maybe you'll get lucky and someone in your area will have one you can check out.

If you google "Bosch Universal Mixer" you'll see several hits for it and many of the websites have videos online demonstrating the mixer. I know everythingkitchens.com has one.

Like I said, I have both a KA Professional and the Bosch and I use the Bosch far more than the KA. I even have an extra KA bowl but I'll still wash the Bosch bowl so I can use it instead of the KA. In fact, even my 14 year old will do that. That's saying something if a teenager will willingly wash something!

I have one really old (like 40+ years) KA. I got rid of my KA Pro because it was a total piece of crap. I also have two DeLonghi 7 qts and a big bad boy Hobart, 20 qt. (Well, big by my standards)