Cuisinart Precision Stand Mixer - Review

Having plenty of time at home means I have had time to experiment with food to create delicious home-made bread, pastries, pizzas and much more. I have been using the Cuisinart Stand Mixer recently to create a range of recipes and wanted to share my thoughts and experiences on using the machine. Does it justify its retail price of £275? I look at its features and performance to see if it’s worth investing in over other well-known stand mixer brands.

Design & Attachments:

First of all, the stand mixer looks very stylish and sleek in it’s polished black die-cast metal exterior with high-mirror shine finish. It certainly wouldn’t look out of place in the kitchen and is surprisingly lighter than it looks. It isn’t light per se but it is definitely lighter than even the Mini KitchenAid Stand Mixer and its relatively easy to life, move and store. It also fits comfortably on an average kitchen counter and doesn’t take up too much valuable surface space.

The attachments include a dough hook, flat mixing paddle, and a chef’s whisk. All feel high quality yet also very light-weight. There’s also a splash guard with a pour spout which fits easily onto the 5.2L stainless steel bowl, which twists and locks onto the base of the machine. This is a great attachment and one which comes in handy when mixing wet ingredients to prevent messy situations. I also found it quite easy to put together and take apart for cleaning.

Another great design feature is the blue LED dial ring which lights up when the mixer is running. A small touch but a really nice one. Other attachments can be added to the front machine including a pasta roller and meat grinder (sold separately).

Performance:

The mixer has a powerful 500W motor with 12 speed settings it is remarkably quiet, even at full speed. Compared to my Mini KitchenAid it is far quieter and that is never a bad thing. When it comes to kneading, the machine is fantastic. I have made multiple bread and pizza doughs with the mixer and it has consistently created smooth dough that has been thoroughly mixed. There’s also an ultra-gentle fold setting that allows you to ease into the mixing so you don’t get coated in flour when starting your mixture which is a nice feature to have. I should also mention that tilting the head up to add ingredients is extremely easy due to the large lever at the back of the machine as well as the light-weight head itself.

When it comes to mixing, the machine falls a little to the wayside unfortunately. Having made a few cakes I do find that the mixture sometimes sticks to the side meaning it was not being mixed evenly and the machine needed to be stopped to push the ingredients back into the middle. To be fair, it wasn’t happening every time and I do find that I have this problem with the Mini KitchenAid as well and once you do scrape the sides a few times it does mix quite well. The splash guard is fantastic and does come in very handy although you do need to keep removing it when you have to scrape the sides which can be a little counterintuitive.

Whisking with the chef’s whisk is a doddle and making meringues is especially easy with very satisfying results.

Overall:

The Cuisinart Stand Mixer is a very good machine that has some impressive features to make it a worthwhile purchase. The light-weight build does not affect the performance of the machine and I was really impressed by the quietness of the machine, even on the higher settings.

The splash guard and ultra-gentle fold setting are very useful and you can tell that thought has been given to the practicalities of using the machine with the consumer in mind. The mixer kneads dough and whisks egg-whites to a professional standard so if you’re into bread and pizza dough making you won’t be disappointed. However, I did find some issues with mixing some cake mixtures with the flat paddle so if you regularly make cakes you may find yourself stopping the machine to scrape the sides to ensure an even mix. I should stress though that this wasn’t always the case, just with some mixtures.

Overall though, the Cuisinart Stand Mixer is a great stand mixer for the price and performs very well with a powerful and impressive motor. It would be a suitable purchase if you’re looking for a light-weight machine that packs a punch in power and performance.