I'm just curious about what is YOUR favorite mixer, and why. I've never had one that I love.  I've had 2 different KitchenAid 's, a Bosch, the small one and the large one, 3 different Sunbeam stand mixers. And an Oster stand mixer. I don't love ANY of them. I have 3 hand mixers, which I love, but just can't hold out to use them (I'm old with bad shoulder) I make a lot of heavy pound cake batter which requires a lot of creaming and it wears me out!! I watch "Amy Learns to Cook" on you tube where she tries out all these high end mixers, but she only tests Cookie dough, Whipped cream and bread dough. It's hard to judge how they would do with a heavy from scratch batter. I love hearing all your opinions. :)

I have a Kitchen Aid Professioal which I have used for 13 years without an issue.  I would think that any mixer that can handle cookie dough and bread dough can handle the cake batter..  Good luck!

I have a refurbished 5.5 Quart Kitchen Aid bought from them in 2015.  I had to replace the worm gear in 2018, as it was a bit of a workhorse. But finally it started dropping things into batters from the rotator. I had to replace the coated flat better about every 6 months because it would chip even though it never touched anything. I was thinking of replacing with the commercial 8  quart Kitchen aid model about a year ago.  But I was researching and took a chance up and coming commercial brand ZACME at just over a third of the cost of the kitchen aid (caught a bit of a sale). I make all my scratch batters and hybrid Swiss Meringue buttercreams in it.  I do not make bread dough.  It is a commercial 8 QT 800w and is NSF certified and came with all stainless steel accessories and bowl (tilt head). It allows me to set a time and the select a speed and it chugs along until the time expires.  It makes just a little noise (far less than my kitchen aid did).   Since I make above the beater batches with my buttercreams, that run on low for often up to 30 minutes and beyond, that feature is incredibly useful to me.

I have to agree with Doz, if something handles bread dough well, a thick cake batter shouldn't be an issue.  I do know the kitchen aid didn't necessarily struggle, but it definitely showed it worked harder when doing bread dough. I think Kitchen aid rests on the name these days, and the quality just isn't the same as models from 15 to 20 years and older had. So this is one of the deciding factors for me to try someone else.  Not a fan of made in China, and honestly I wanted a brand  that really isn't available in the US anymore due to lack of popularity that gets amazing reviews from the rest of the world.  So instead I opted for the one I got and have no regrets.  Funny enough, I bought a tiny little 3 quart mixer to remix half frosting batches to regain the smoothness and work out air.  I ran it for the first time this weekend for a small order. It did exactly what I wanted but no joke, it was so much louder than the larger unit.  HTH!!

I love all the mixers almost as much as I love little puppies! every. last. one. my heart goes kathump kathump

so currently i have a 12 qt, only one 6qt. ka now, and it needs to be replaced, and a 20 qt hvy duty berkel plus a hand held ka that was my mom's -- plus I've been blessed enough to have gifted 5 ka's that I can remember -- I love bakery equipment -- be still my beating heart --