I shopped around a long time before I bought this mixer. Based on other reviews and the great reputation of KitchenAid, I finally took the plunge. While it's a lot of money to shell out for a countertop appliance, I've found that it's been worth every last cent. No more scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula, no more unmixed flour in the bottom of the bowl, and it is pretty and sleek enough that I can keep it sitting on my counter!
The pouring shield makes it easy to dump ingredients in, and not get them poofed back in your face! I occasionally whip up batches of decorator's cake icing, which requires 2 pounds of confectioner's sugar. On my old mixer, everything within a 1-yard radius of the mixer would be covered in with a layer of sugar. Not any more. The pouring sheild keeps the mess contained to the bowl and the underside of the mixer head. I wanted a mixer with a tilt-up head instead of the bowl-lift mechanism on other KitchenAid models. It's designed well so that tilting the head back doesn't even knock the pouring shield off with the beater.
I make a lot of focaccia bread, and mave always hated the 10 minutes of hand kneading. So I dumped the dough in my kitchen aid and ran it at the lowest speed with the dough hook. It came out beautifully. Not sure how I ever lived without this.
The only problem is that with the black model, it ends up looking a little streaky if you just wipe it down with a sponge. Be sure to wipe it dry, too! My boyfriend, the cuisinally challenged, put the regular beater attachment through the dishwasher, and it came out with some sort of powdery-looking deposits all over it. Working on getting that cleaned off.
Overall, I would highly recommend the Artisan mixer. It's powerful enough for the heftiest mixing jobs, and was thoughfully designed with the practical cook in mind.Get more detail about KitchenAid KSM150PSER Artisan Series 5-Quart Mixer, Empire Red.
