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I’m so excited to review a new addition to my baking arsenal: the Kitchen Aid 8 qt commercial mixer! If you didn’t read my post in December, I lost my very dear friend…my Artisan 4.5 qt stand mixer. We’d been together for about a decade, and I hadn’t realized just how much I’d come to rely on my stand mixer to take care of business while I worked on other things. I had to use a hand mixer — quite the eye opener.
I was sad to see my Artisan stand mixer go. The silver lining was that I was able to splurge a little (thank you Christmas!). After reading reviews, I chose the Kitchen Aid 8 qt commercial mixer. Talk about insane differences, just in size…I was not expecting the sheer size of the sucker. Please understand: I’m a home baker, so I’ve never used commercial anything.
So what’s different with the commercial mixer?
From reading other Kitchen Aid 8 qt commercial mixer reviews, I knew to expect a weight difference. The Artisan paddle attachment and dough hook were a fraction of the weight of the Kitchen Aid’s commercial mixer attachments. Why? The commercial stand mixer’s attachments are made from stainless steel, while the Artisan attachments are cast aluminum. It’s one thing to read about the differences…seeing them was rather dramatic!
I was so excited to get started on baking projects with this fabulous new commercial mixer!! My first project was making some bread, and it worked beautifully. There were some clicks from the machine as the dough got stiffer, but according to Kitchen Aid’s commercial mixer FAQ, that’s totally normal.
One of my favorite things about this Kitchen Aid commercial mixer? The 8 qt. bowl. Instead of splashing everywhere, the flour stayed in the bowl — which means less cleanup, which makes me very happy.
The big “test” for my new mixer
Before I wrote a Kitchen Aid 8 qt commercial mixer review, I wanted to take it out for a test run. My needed to make mousses for a test cake, which meant whipping egg whites as well as cream. The biggest (haha) downside to the commercial size mixer is its size. The mousse required two egg whites, and I fully expected them to be whipped lickety-split. I set the whisk in, turned the Kitchen Aid mixer up to full speed, and went to make the sugar syrup. While the syrup cooked, I peeked at the progress the mixer was making, and…nothing. There were some bubbles on the surface of the egg whites, but that was it. The Kitchen Aid 8 qt commercial mixer is way too big to handle small batches like that. Damn!
I’m hoping my husband can fix the old Artisan stand mixer so I can use it to mix smaller batches. I have two of everything for that mixer (bowls, paddles, etc)! It’s much more expensive to get the Kitchen Aid extras for the commercial mixer.
So, my final review of the Kitchen Aid 8 qt commercial mixer is: it’s a fabulous stand mixer with plenty of power. Plus, it has a really amazing bowl capacity for being a countertop mixer. The big downside is that because of the Kitchen Aid 8 qt commercial mixer’s large capacity, it can’t handle smaller things. Would I trade it for my Artisan mixer? Nope, but in my perfect world, I’d have both.
Have you used this model? If you have any tips, or anything to add to this Kitchen Aid 8 qt commercial mixer review, please let me know in the comments!
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