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

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

However after I speak about how necessary a stand mixer is for baking, people often reply with one thing alongside the strains of, “Effectively, 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 shouldn’t be a alternative of comfort; I exploit 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). Apart from the truth that the stand mixer itself is greater than 100 years outdated, making it a fixture of recent recipe improvement, the desserts made previous to that period have been radically totally different from those we make as we speak and higher suited to preparation by hand. The appearance of high-power mechanical mixing allowed for brand new strategies and ingredient ratios to create the desserts we all know and love as we speak.

The Finest Stand Mixer

A Temporary Historical past of Mixing

Fashionable American layer muffins are an ideal instance of this; previous to mechanical mixing, People made muffins very like 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 have been then completed with a easy meringue frosting or, doubtlessly, 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 increased proportions of butter as a substitute, ultimately bringing us to the richer model of cake and frosting we discover in American bakeries as we speak. These buttery types of cake and frosting merely did not exist again when the one possibility 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 solution to their very own style of baking—one which occurs to be of specific private curiosity to me. That is partially as a result 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 important 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 concentrate on in my very own work.

How Stand Mixers Work

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

Because of their robust motors, stand mixers can work with butter at temperatures effectively under what an individual might handle by hand, effectively under even what a hand mixer might deal with (attempt to cream 65°F butter with a hand mixer as a substitute of a stand mixer, and you will 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 an important side 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 mild. The decrease quantity of batters and doughs that hotter butter produces interprets to a decrease yield (as aeration bodily will increase the quantity of area a batter or dough will occupy) in addition to a poor rise, making for heavy muffins and flat cookies. So when you’ve ever been affected by flat cookies, the poor creaming motion of a hand mixer could also be responsible.

For extra info, please see our detailed take 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, capable of 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 best way, whereas sustaining a decrease temperature for the elements (in flip, maintaining my cookie dough thick and straightforward to deal with, not sticky, and maintaining my cake batters cool, higher capable of retain air for a good rise).

Due to their highly effective motors, stand mixers are additionally capable of whip complete 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 strategies that weren’t attainable 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, complete eggs right into a steady foam.

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

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

FAQs

What’s one of the best stand mixer?

We’re enormous followers of the KitchenAid Professional stand mixer, but additionally suggest different fashions from Wolf, KitchenAid, and Ankarsrum. You may learn our full evaluate of stand mixers right here.

Does KitchenAid make one of the best stand mixers?

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