Kitchenaid Stand Mixers

[worm@work]

My dear husband just got me a spankin new Kitchenaid Professional 600 stand mixer as an early xmas gift!! I can't wait to use it but have no idea what to do with it!! I want the first dish I use it for to be something really special that we will both enjoy . Can some of you share some of your favorite recipes that involve the use of a stand mixer? Your recipes and ideas will be really appreciated.

Thanks,

w@w

[JayBassin]

My biggest use of the KA at home is making breads and rolls. Large volumes of egg whites are another good use. Large cakes, or batters that need beating or whipping. Sometimes, though, it's just as easy to use a whisk or a small hand-held mixer for small jobs like a couple of egg whites. I also use a food processor for some mixing jobs like pie crusts and choux paste; mainly because the KA is not on my counter all the time and the processor is. I also use the bowls to brine chickens (just the right size) or chill stocks for defatting.

[slschnur]

I use mine for kneading bread - it's fantstic for this application & I would have trouble living without it as I don't enjoy kneading by hand. Also for mashed potatoes, cakes, cookies...

[mikelbarnz]

Welcome to the wonderful world of KitchenAid ownership! The most obvious uses are for baking, from using the dough hook to knead bread to whipping egg whites for meringues.

The great thing about a KA is its the "gift that keeps on giving". Next holiday/birthday/anniversery, ask for pasta rollers. Or a meat grinder. Or a juicer. Or an ice cream maker...

[srhcb]

What could possibly be better than fresh bread?

I don't know about the newer models, but the recipe book that I got with mine about fifteen years ago had several good recipes designed for the mixer.

SB (uses his a couple times every week)

[BryanZ]

The pasta rollers are where it's at. Making fresh pasta is time consuming in itself so not having to hand roll the dough is great.

[Jmahl]

My wife and I have the good luck of having and using a KA for the last 28 years and still finding new uses. Great for three minute pasta dough. Replaced the beater bar recently after the plastice coating finally started to wear off. The KA is cheaper now than 28 years ago. As mentioned above, try it for mashed potatos. Its fast.

[maggiethecat]

Hey the season is upon us! Drill out all those cookie recipes. And by all means, learn to love the dough hook! All those seasonal sweet bread recipes like stollen or pannetone that are such a sticky knead if you're using your hands are fun and easy with your KA.

Oh my, the attachments are a blast. I can make pasta with my hands and a rolling pin, but the pasta attachment encourages me to make it more often. But, for me, the meat grinder /sausage stuffer is the biggest KA blast. I have an old clamp-on, turn the handle meat grinder sausage setup. But the KA is just fab at charcuterie. Cooking geeks that we are, we have the occasional sausage night: chicken/sage, pork breakfast links, and a pate on the side.

[cathrynapple]

i just got on for my birthday, and there isn't anything i HAVEN'T used it for. all my friends are currently eating cake. and i mean all of them.

[FistFullaRoux]

Souffles. Make them all day long.

Just remember, whipped cream can be used in non-culinary ways too. Talk about special...

[cathrynapple]

hahahah!

i feel the same way about meringue...i DREAM in meringue.

the KA mixer has changed my meringue forever, so i recommend just that. itlaian, swiss, whatever. lemon cake with a curd filling, smothered in italian meringue and JUST browned in a broiler or with a little torch.

[HowardLi]

Just picked one up, wondering if there's anything cool I can do besides bake cakes.

https://www.cayneshousewares.com/product.php?productid=7545&cat=0&page=1 <- this is the model

[andiesenji]

Well, if you are into kitsch, you can flame it up a bit with one of these fun decorative kits.

Note that you can see a similar one on some of Alton Brown's shows.

[percival]

You could get a meat grinding attachment and avoid most of the the E. coli goodness of supermarket grind, and make your own brisket-chuck blend. I'd pass on the noodle extruder attachment. Pushing isn't the same as folding and stretching, texture-wise.

[dougal]

Just picked one up, wondering if there's anything cool I can do besides bake cakes.

Basically, its a mixer. It mixes!

Just be careful you don't over-estimate its strength -- take particular note of its limitations (check the manual) when kneading stiff dough.

You can get other attachments (at extra cost) to do other tasks.

Or even for special-purpose mixing (like churning ice cream in a special bowl that chills in your freezer.)

However, reputedly excellent ice cream can be made in the standard KA bowl -- with the aid of a good pour of liquid Nitrogen.

I wouldn't be too certain that the warranty covers such unusual operations.

But definitively "cool" though.

In particular, for the cake-making you mention, silicone 'flexible' (bowl-scraping) beaters are wonderful. There's a dedicated thread here somewhere. One product name I recall is Beaterblade. I use Kenwood's own in my old Kenwood.

You could get a meat grinding attachment and avoid most of the the E. coli goodness of supermarket grind, and make your own brisket-chuck blend. I'd pass on the noodle extruder attachment. Pushing isn't the same as folding and stretching, texture-wise.

The KA meat grinder these days is plastic and a bit wimpy.

The German specialist manufacturer Jupiter offers a more serious bit of kit, in a version to fit the KA.

Grinder sausage-stuffing nozzles aren't the best way of making sausages (get a piston stuffer), but they can be a means of simply extruding large quantities of dog biscuits ... (is that unconventional?)

Regarding pasta attachments, percival seems a little confused. Yes, the KA extruder is again a bit wimpy - and if you wanted bronze-die-extruded pasta, you should have bought a Kenwood, not a KA. But if you want rolled pasta, buy the KA pasta roller attachment, not the extruder -- someone on here thought that the pasta roller was the single best attachment ever made (though I'm certain that others might disagree!)

The KA doesn't take a blender attachment.

My Kenwood does.

It has been used for sawdust. Why? To make finer and more even sawdust, of course! (My excellent little Pro-Q cold smoke generator wants rather fine saw dust, if it is going to smoulder unattended all through the night.) Is that unconventional?

Edited September 23, 2010 by dougal (log)

[percival]

I stand corrected. I didn't know there was a roller attachment.

[dougal]

Looks like one can now get just the roller (KPSA) or the roller plus 2 cutters (KPRA) for about double the cost.

[lancastermike]

If one searches the internet one could find places were KA mixers with non-standard attachments are used. These uses are not really of a culinary nature, however.

[baroness]

KA sells many attachments; one that hasn't been mentioned yet is the grain mill. I've not used it, but DO second the reco for the BeaterBlade.

[Peter the eater]

I like the dough hook for yeasty breads. The meat grinder and sausage stuffer get a 6 or 7 out of 10.

[Chocolot]

My link

How about this one? I have one but haven't played yet.

[Alcuin]

The grinder is ok. For my purposes it's good enough, since I usually only do 5 lbs of sausage at a time. It's just fine for ground beef and the like. But like dougal said, get a dedicated stuffer if you want to stuff. The stuffer attachment is pretty junky and results in a lot of frustration and a weaker product.

I really want that pasta roller attachment. Hands free rolling, no clamping to a table, and it makes very thin pasta. One of these days it will be mine.

[Tri2Cook]

My link

How about this one? I have one but haven't played yet.

Kerry Beal has that one as well. She did a demo on panning with it HERE.

Edited September 23, 2010 by Tri2Cook (log)

[paulraphael]

That Jupiter grinder looks promising. Another option is to find one of the older aluminum Hobart meat grinders on ebay. They generally cost a little more than the current KA grinders, but are pretty indestructible. I have one and like it.

The plastic KA grinders have the advantage of being dishwasher-safe, but I've heard about some of them cracking after a few years of use.

As far as "unconventional" uses ... that's tough. There are so many conventional ones. KA wants you to use it for everything. They'd make a tooth-brushing attachment if they thought they could sell it.

I read once about a concrete company using a Hobart N50 to mix concrete samples. This would likely be a bad idea with a Kitchen Aid ...

Edited September 23, 2010 by paulraphael (log)

[Beebs]

I've used the pasta roller attachment for making crackers. It's a pain to clean though - lots of little dried-up dough bits get caught in it.

My favourite is the dough hook for kneading bread.