Don't want to pay £500 for Kitchenaid and attachments. What's the next best thing?

[INeedThatForkOff]

DH and I were going to treat ourselves to a Kitchenaid in pistachio for Christmas. My mum paid £270 for hers about five years ago, when the RRP was about £300. I love the look of it, but it's not perfection (scraping batter from the sides; rattling until the rod starts to come out). I fail to see how it's worth £430 and more than £500 with the attachments that we want (ice cream, grater and mincer).

So as libel as it looks I'm thinking of biting a Kenwood Chef and not having it out on display. Or a KMix. Or the Andrew James version.

Does anyone have any recommendations please?

I've got the kenwood chef premier and love it ..... and it's on display too :o

My kenwood is out in display. The kmix looks lovely and even the chefs come with different coloured accents.

The prospero gets brilliant reviews on here too. Not sure if it has ice cream attachment though.

We have bought a few appliances by Andrew James and been quite impressed. They do something that looks like a KA but for about 80 quid which I've been thinking about.

I've got a Kenwood Prospero, which is the small end of the Kenwood range and possibly not what you want. I absolutely love it, it has a FP and blender. However I would say that whatever you get you will probably use a lot more if it's out on the counter, I use mine almost daily and it's just so handy having it sitting there ready to go.

I've got a Kenwood Chef Premier too, and I use it a fair bit for mixing and kneading dough. I also have the ice cream maker for it - it works well. I really like it.

I bought andrew james one from amazon and sent it back. You can onle knead bread for 3 mins at a time and need to manually change speec and so cant just leave it to knead.. Have to be next to machine all time. Made cake mix which left most of ix on side of bowl and it would not whip enough cream to fill said cake. And the noise... Donot buy! Not worthit!

I bought a beautiful red standing mixer from a newish company called Andrew James 2 weeks ago.
it cost £86, free P&P (Ebay)

it has a 5.2 litre mixing bowl and dough hook, whisk and 2 different cake mixing attachments, plus a splash guard, cookbook and free spatula.
12 months guarantee. available in black, silver and red.

I have made 2 batches of meringues, four breads so far and I bought the ice cream maker attachment separately and made delicious icecream yesterday!

I absolutely love it and will be using it as often as I can!

Carol

I called them up - you can use the high speed whisk for 8 minutes
and I whisked as little 150ml egg whites successfully.

but you shouldn't mix the bread dough for ages anyway, I mix it for 5 minutes than knead it for another 5 so it won't get overkneaded.

and the bread I made came out wonderful.

and the ice cream maker attachment you can run for up to 45 mins (on speed one) - I did not stand by the machine for that!
but you should absolutely watch egg whites, so they are not over whisked and you should watch the dough too in case you need to add extra water - neither of those are the machines fault.

I'm sorry you had trouble, I really love mine!

I have a silver KC, personally I prefer it looks wise to the KA. But don't get one if you are going to put it in a cupboard, it's seriously sturdy and consequently heavy.

Nobody puts my KC in the corner! (To paraphrase a certain movie.)

I have a kenwood prospero which is fab. It comes with a blender and processor (grater, chopping etc) It's £145 on amazon at the moment.

I was sorely tempted by te Kmix john lewis have a deal at the moment where you get a free matching toaster and kettle. I guess if you didn't want them you could sell them on making the mixer even better value for money.

www.johnlewis.com/kenwood-kmix-kmx51-stand-mixer-red-with-free-kettle-and-toaster/p232614653?s_afcid=af_78888&awc=1203_1382788729_cb4b01da1b25d539bdd91584e0863cd0

here's the kmix deal. They do have other colours too.

ohh Mary - they have covers for the prospero too! Thanks!

:o

I have often said on MN that I would marry my Chef if I wasn't already married.

'Nuff said

Seriously, though, it's a brilliant machine. It lives on the counter with a cloth dust cover on it. Sometimes I use it several times a day, sometimes once a week. I don't use the blender much (a stick blender is less faff to set up and clean) but apart from that all my other attachments are really useful and effective.

I would recommend getting an extra metal bowl (a spare bowl is always useful, and a metal bowl can be chilled for whipping cream, is better for whipping egg-whites, and has convenient grooves in the base for gripping when pouring out cake mix) and an extra splash-guard (they wear out eventually, and it's easier to have a new one to hand than to have to track down an earlier model).

The one thing I dislike about the Kenwoods is that they are building-in obsolescence by modifying the shapes with every new edition, so it starts getting difficult to buy accessories after a few years. Not impossible yet, just awkward.

How does the prospero cope with bread dough?

If I was making a 1.2kg mix would it hold up?

I have a Bosch MUM46A1GB because I didn't want to pay Kitchenaid prices and it is excellent. It has loads of attachments and have made bread with it several times and have been really happy with the results. I prefer the look of it as well as I think the retro look of the Kitchenaid is hideous.

I haven't used mine for bread yet.

It has suction to keep it still and I had a triple batch of cake mix in their last week and it was fine.

I like the KMix design but have read that the paddle attachment gets stuck. Anyone had this problem? Also can't see an ice-cream attachment. That offer is great though.

Thing KC Premier is my front runner at the moment.

ILoveA Me too!!

I have the Titanium as I wanted one with a processor as some things you can't do with a stick blender.

I have the ice-cream attachment, which works well, and I'm after the pasta attachment from Santa, but the one I use the most is the Roto food cutter. I use it to grate veg to put in bolognase and chili, and for the vast quantities of grated cheese we seem to get through, it came in very handy the other day when we had a fondue.

It handles dough really well and I use it for cakes, biscuits etc and the glass blender is powerful enough to crush ice.

I have, however, put on weight since I got it!

Wannabe - the Prospero is supposed to only do 500g of dough. I do that quantity in it regularly and it is fine, never had it move on the counter.

the Andrews James is fine for 800g flour plus 450ml water quantity.

Very tempted by the Titanium. Seems quite a bit more for the money compared with the Premier. Does it come with a free attachment offer?

I got the Kenwood Titanium from Santa last year and love it. It came with all sorts of extras but not sure what was included and what DH bought as extras. The flexible beater is great and I always use this when making cakes. I agree about putting on weight since getting it!

The titanium is more because it has the processor with it, I wanted this so I could get rid of my old processor and only have one piece of kit as I have a fairly small kitchen.

It comes with a metal bowl, k beater, whisk, dough hook, processor and glass blender, mine also came with a rubber k beater but I'm not sure if that's standard. It also has a 1400 w motor so it copes well with dough and heavy cake mixes.