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Top Tips for Buying a Food Mixer

So you’re in the market for a new food mixer, maybe your old one has eventually given up the ghost, maybe it’s rusted at the back of the garage and you’ve just decided that it would come in useful, or maybe you’re a newly converted foody enthusiast and can’t wait to get mixing. Make no mistake, there are lots of food mixers out there, choosing a food mixer can be a pretty tricky business, which is why I thought it would be a good idea to compile a few top tips for when you buy your next food mixer.

Top Tip #1

What Are You Going to Do With Your Food Mixer?

Duhhhh, mix food. Yes, but food mixers are very versatile you know, but they can’t all be good at everything, so it’s best to choose your new food mixer whilst bearing in mind exactly what you want to do with it.  Your food mixing needs may change from year to year as families grow and your cooking confidence grows . . . meaning dinner parties! Ahhhhh! Not the dreaded dinner party! Anyway, just think about it logically for a while.  Do you love to bake cakes? Are you more of a bread maker who might need different attachments? Do you fancy making your own home-made ice cream or pasta? If so, you need to carefully consider the attachments, and whether you can buy new ones separately.

But what about the power? The wattage dictates the power of the motor and the speed of the mixing, cakes need at least 800 watts to be on the safe side, and make sure that there are plenty of speed settings to choose from too. If you want to use your food mixer for heavier stuff like puddings and bread then you might need an even more powerful mixer, more than 1000 watts maybe, and you’ll often find that you need to turn up the speed dial a bit to get it started.

Top Tip #2

Buy a Food Mixer Which is Easy to Clean

If a food mixer is difficult to dismantle and therefore clean, give it a very wide berth. You’ll use it once and then leave it at the back of the cupboard for the next 5 years. It’s no good having one of these time saving gadgets if it takes you longer to clean the darn thing than it would to have mixed your cake by hand is it?  Makes perfect sense to me.

Top Tip #3

Choose The Design Carefully

Food mixers are designed for one thing, mixing food, and although they are all pretty similar in their design, watch out for some subtle differences which can make a whole heap of difference to the “usability” of your food mixer.  Ideally, a food mixer should have a pretty wide bottom and not stand too high . . . short and stout does the trick, it really does make the whole thing more reliable and sturdy, imagine the mess if your food mixer tipped over in the middle of beating your pudding batter, it’d be just everywhere. Anyway, even the short fat food mixers should not be left to their own devices whilst they are mixing . . . some of them literally walk across the worktop and jump onto the floor. Such a mess!

 Top Tip #4

And the price . . .

In food mixer world, as well as in many other worlds, you really do “gets what you pays for”. Spend as much as you can, of course if you can find a great brand at a bargain price then go for it, but if you want your food mixer to be a reliable kitchen companion for many years to come, spend as much money as you can afford to.

That was good wasn’t it?

Did you get that? Wow, you can do loads of things with food mixers, they’re great.

I bet you hadn’t thought of doing THAT with your food mixer. I told you they’re a versatile piece of kit.