My new Monster!

As you would expect for a monster – it is HUGE! Hence the packages that arrived with my Food Mixer and its accessories were massive and I am glad they fit up the narrow stair case. Unfortunately I cannot afford a KitchenAid although I want one, so I opted for the Andrew James all in one 5.2 litres Food Mixer for a small portion of the price of a KitchenAid. Let me win the lottery first before I upgrade to the big leagues.

So far I have baked and cooked with value hand mixers of this world and I have knackered two, so I thought I deserve an upgrade from that. Reviews seemed to suggest that the Andrew James mixer was decent value for money.
I have very limited space in our shared kitchen but I managed to find a niche for it.

It comes with a blender attachment and a meat grinder. The blender is awesome and proper glass which I love. I used it for some yummy spinach & tomato soup the other day and for this kale smoothie inspired cheese cake.

The meat grinder can wait for a bit, I shall take advice and recipe tips from my dad in due course. He makes his own sausages and smoked ham and bacon and who knows what else. It shall be awesome once I get there and am ready for meat adventures!

It took me a while to actually use the mixer as I am late with baking this year, but at long last I tested it.

Due to the 1500 watt power behind it, I was expecting it to be loud and it really is a monster – a cake loving monster! My cake loving monster.
Apparently you can only use it for 4 minutes on setting 6 and then it will give up or die. I thought this was worrisome at first, but so far I didn’t use it at that high speed/power and mixing in general doesn’t take that long for most things.

It mixes cake dough very well and efficiently and is excellent for pan cake mix!
Though It is totally useless for making icing! The silicon attachment does not scrape the bottom of the bowl so all the butter sits there and does not mix with the rest of the ingredients. I had to take out my flatmate’s hand mixer to make it. Very disappointing though I felt better after my dad told me that this apparently also happens with KitchenAids.

I guess I will see how good the mixer will serve me, but I think midnight baking might not be such a great idea in the future giving the noises the monster makes. It comes with a dough hook for making breads, however I am still doubtful if this will work but I guess there is only one way to find out. Watch this blog.

I played around with some app recommendations my brother gave me over Christmas and made some nice artwork of my mixer. To capture the loving welcome moment.