Most helpful client reviews
174 of 175 humans found the following review helpful.
Better than Kitchenaid
By koffeemann
I make bread weekly using a mixer and not long back my Kitchenaid motor gave out after overheating. Though I prefer the looks of the Kitchenaid mixers (something more industrial with regards to them), Cuisinart has addressed various of the key difficulties found in Kitchenaid mixers: not sufficient power, overly wide bowl shape, absene of timer/minimal speed control. The more inviolable motor is essential if you’re mixing bread doughs for minutes at a time. The taller, more narrow bowl shape prevents spilling. The timer function is tremendously useful. And the wider range of speeds (especially slow speeds) and tame acceleration up to any speed, again, prevent spills and grant for more control.
Other features I like: the spill guard fits neatly and is ONE piece (again, different from my old Kitchenaid); the lock feature clicks the top arm into place so you never run the danger of lifting from the top and having the bottom swing out; the smooth surfaces make for easy clean-up; the affixations all wash effortlessly in the dishwasher.
A great product!
105 of 105 humans found the following review helpful.
Unexpected Pleasure and Performance
By Robert Brian Lamm
I have owned a few KitchenAid 5 Qt mixers, and even a Hobart Professional 5 Qt (45 lbs, 3 speed manual transmission). I was disappointed to listen (but never experienced) the troubles users came across when KitchenAid changed their gearbox from metal to plastic (yes, their gearbox, not their gears). Therefore, the assurance that presently appears on their product box that their mixers have “all metal gears” does not address the problem of the gearbox COVER material. Whether K’Aid has addressed this issue has never genuinely been clarified by them adequately for my taste, and so my temptation to buy the 6 qt. KitchenAid was dampened.
I purchased the Cuisinart 7 Quart because I wanted the extra capacity – plainly that. I find that it is power is adequate for all tasks, and no matter what the speed setting, it “knows” to ramp up to that speed tardily (so as not to invent a cloud of flour or other ingredients with the potential to scatter), something only possible with the advent of newer electronic controllers. The bowl is deep and well designed.
A word when it comes to wattage: Please don’t puchase any mixer because you believe that high wattage will translate to more power. That just isn’t so. Wattage is a measure of power consumed by the mixer, not put out as torque (ability to slog through heavy doughs). A poorly designed motor will use lots of watts, but will not deliver it to you in increased power. This mixer happens to have 1000 watts of power – sounds like a lot. The point is that whatsoever it is power draw, it is power output is sufficient for the tasks at hand. Way back when, I had a KitchenAid 5 qt. that applied 325 watts (before wattage became sexy). It, too, had adequate power; today, with the merchandising of wattage as a significant number, people would sneer at such an “underpowered” unit. Silly, really.
This mixer is well designed. It has a mixing timer, a pulse button, both of which are useful. Its lineage (for those of you who are interested) is as follows: A UK brand, Kenwood, marketed a quality 7 qt mixer that was popular in EU for a heap of years, but was never very popular in the US market. It was sold to Rival, and for a short time, was available under that brand. It was then sold to DeLonghi, who modified it a bit; then it was sold to Cuisinart, who made the most substantial modifications to it (deeper, better designed bowl, better controller with timer and speed ramp up feature). The mixer was always inherent a good one, even way back when it was a Kenwood.
The design of this mixer, with it is huge capacity, still allows the beater head to pivot up, permitting the beater to clear out of and away from the bowl, whereas the beater heads of the KitchenAid 5 and 6 qt models are fixed and require that the bowl be cranked down, but leave the beater finelooking much in the way. I prefer this design as it offers more access to the bowl (no matter what they tell you, you must still scrape down the bowl sporadically – the question is, which design allows you to do that more easily?)
Its tools (whip, dough hook and flat beater) are exceedingly well designed and are, I think, a bit better than KitchenAid’s. I’m not an “accessory
person”, and so I cannot speak to the quality of the pasta press, meat grinder, blender, etc. I will say that K’Aid most likely still offers a more outstanding assortment of accessories, and so for those who are mesmerized in milling grain, straining tomatoes, opening cans, etc. by using mixer attachments, I think this is in all probability not the unit for you.
An extra bowl for the unit (which I find very useful) costs $55 directly from Cuisinart, though I see it here on Amazon for $99, an unbelivable markup.
I highly commend this mixer, have made everything from heavy cookie doughs to merengues, and find it to be well designed and a pleasure to use.
118 of 122 persons found the following review helpful.
So far it works great
By kalyson
I researched the Kitchenaid, Viking and various other brands of mixers. There were a lot of good and bad reviews of Kitchenaid, but what I was competent to discover was that Kitchenaid used to be owned by Hobart Corp. At that time they were magnificent mixers, but then they were purchased by Whirlpool. The mixers now have plastic gears. Although the higher-end models have metal gears (Pro series), they are still in a plastic housing. This decline in quality disturbs me. It is likely that most home cooks do not use it for heavy-duty usage, but those cooks who do have apparently found the merchandise from Kitchenaid do not last (see negative reviews — exceptionally from the engineer who took assorted of them apart). The Viking seemed better made but was rather expensive. I settled on the Cuisinart after learning that it is gears and gear housing are metal. Hopefully it will last a long time. I noticed that the Kitchanaid had only a one year warranty, but the Cuisinart has a FIVE year motor warranty, and a three year product warranty overall. It seemed a safer bet, so I got the Cuisinart. It performs very well. The timer is built right into the side of the mixer and is very handy. The mixer leaves very little batter unmixed even if you don’t bother to scrape the bowl yourself. The range of speeds is very big — from exceedingly slow (1) to fantastically fast (12). It is beauteous quiet in it is operation. I will have to proceed using it to see how long it lasts, but so far it does a outstanding job.
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