The Actual Cause You Ought to Use a Stand Mixer Is not Comfort

It is no secret that I like my stand mixer, and that it performs a job in an awesome variety of my cookie, cake, and frosting recipes.

However after I discuss how essential a stand mixer is for baking, people normally reply with one thing alongside the strains of, “Properly, then how did they do it within the olden days?” And the reply is, they did not. What many bakers do not understand is that utilizing a stand mixer isn’t a alternative of comfort; I take advantage of a stand mixer in these recipes as a result of it is higher suited to the job than mixing by hand (or with a hand mixer). Other than the truth that the stand mixer itself is greater than 100 years previous, making it a fixture of contemporary recipe improvement, the desserts made previous to that period had been radically completely different from those we make immediately and higher suited to preparation by hand. The arrival of high-power mechanical mixing allowed for brand spanking new methods and ingredient ratios to create the desserts we all know and love immediately.

The Finest Stand Mixer

A Transient Historical past of Mixing

Fashionable American layer muffins are an important instance of this; previous to mechanical mixing, Individuals made muffins very similar to bakers within the Previous World: sponge muffins produced from egg whites and yolks whipped individually by hand, then mixed with fats and flour folded in on the finish. These had been then completed with a easy meringue frosting or, probably, a little bit of unsweetened whipped cream (each fairly simple to whip by hand).

However with a mechanical mixer’s distinctive capabilities, bakers started to develop recipes with greater proportions of butter as an alternative, ultimately bringing us to the richer model of cake and frosting we discover in American bakeries immediately. These buttery kinds of cake and frosting merely did not exist again when the one choice was to organize one thing by hand.

Clearly, there is a whole lot extra to the story than that, however for now, suffice it to say that stand mixers have given strategy to their very own style of baking—one which occurs to be of explicit private curiosity to me. That is partially on account of my culinary faculty coaching in addition to my very own background in business bakeries and eating places. I am not right here to say proudly owning a stand mixer is crucial to all bakers—certainly, lengthy durations of inactivity may cause points for KitchenAid fashions—solely that it is pretty important to the model of baking I deal with in my very own work.

How Stand Mixers Work

An important factor a stand mixer has to supply is not comfort; it is energy.

Due to their sturdy motors, stand mixers can work with butter at temperatures properly under what an individual may handle by hand, properly under even what a hand mixer may sort out (attempt to cream 65°F butter with a hand mixer as an alternative of a stand mixer, and you may simply watch cubes of fats fly from the bowl). With that energy, the large, flat paddle attachment can quickly beat comparatively chilly butter with sugar, working it into an ethereal matrix of fats, air, and sugar crystals.

That is a vital facet of the creaming methodology, as butter loses its capability for aeration because it warms, which means that butter creamed at temperatures appropriate for working by hand (or with a hand mixer) won’t ever attain a stage as fluffy or gentle. The decrease quantity of batters and doughs that hotter butter produces interprets to a decrease yield (as aeration bodily will increase the quantity of house a batter or dough will occupy) in addition to a poor rise, making for heavy muffins and flat cookies. So should you’ve ever been tormented by flat cookies, the poor creaming motion of a hand mixer could also be in charge.

For extra info, please see our detailed have a look at the technical course of concerned within the creaming methodology.

Past its energy to work with comparatively chilly and arduous butter, the motion of a stand mixer’s paddle attachment is exclusive; it is a single paddle that is large and flat, in a position to bash, rub, smear, unfold, and fold.

Whereas each a stand mixer and a hand mixer can incorporate butter and sugar, a stand mixer’s paddle achieves extra quantity alongside the way in which, whereas sustaining a decrease temperature for the elements (in flip, conserving my cookie dough thick and straightforward to deal with, not sticky, and conserving my cake batters cool, higher in a position to retain air for a good rise).

Due to their highly effective motors, stand mixers are additionally in a position to whip entire eggs straight from the fridge, with none want for separating whites and yolks or bringing them to room temperature first. Whether or not I am making shiny chocolate brownies or a crack-free jelly roll, working with chilly eggs helps guarantee a extra steady foam for baked items.

Once more, this permits for methods that weren’t doable in Ye Olden Days. Within the 1800s, a baker must separate whites from yolks to whip every by itself to make one thing like a chocolate sponge cake, however a stand mixer has the sheer energy to whip chilly, entire eggs right into a steady foam.

So for bakers who persistently expertise a low rise with sponge muffins or discover that foamed-egg brownies at all times appear uncooked or dense or that Swiss meringue at all times appears too heavy and buttery, the issue could be an underpowered hand mixer.

So then what’s the perfect mixer, you ask? I’ve written all about my love for the six-quart KitchenAid Professional.

FAQs

What’s the perfect stand mixer?

We’re big followers of the KitchenAid Professional stand mixer, but in addition advocate different fashions from Wolf, KitchenAid, and Ankarsrum. You possibly can learn our full overview of stand mixers right here.

Does KitchenAid make the perfect stand mixers?

Properly, two out of 4 of our high stand mixer picks are made by KitchenAid. You possibly can learn a extra detailed comparability of (virtually) all the KitchenAid stand mixers right here.