Copyright Bettina Network 2009
No comparison. CUISINART WINS.
We use a stand mixer often because we cook a lot and love to try new recipe’s, but we don’t like to beat things by hand or wire wisk, if we can find an easier way. This mixer thing has been quite an experience.
We bought a Kitchen Aid – middle of the line – and it lasted about two years before something cracked in the motor while we were whipping butter. After that it would not whip anything heavier then egg whites, but the noise was so great we didn’t even want to use it for that. Trying to use it for anything heavier than egg whites, the machine wouldn’t work.
We called Kitchen Aid and they said – sorry – nothing we can do. You can pay $25 and we will send you a box to mail the mixer back to us and we’ll check it out. Once we’ve had a chance to examine the machine, we’ll call and tell you the cost of repair. Can’t tell you before hand because we don’t know. Can’t even give you an order of magnitude or a rough guess as to cost.
We thought, maybe we did something wrong. Maybe it was too small a machine. Kitchen Aid is the mixer used on all of the elegant cooking shows and in the beautiful magazines so the problem must be with us.
So instead of sending it back and risking a large repair bill, we decided to buy the largest, heaviest Kitchen Aid made – which we did. A couple years later, with much less use, something in the motor cracked (again) and we had the exact same problem we experienced with the first Kitchen Aid we purchased. Again we called the company and found – sorry – send us $32 and we will send you a box to mail the machine back to us, etc. etc. etc.
It was not a great telephone conversation and we were not pleased with the way we were treated so we got rid of the mixer.
This time, we were a lot more careful. Instead of buying a machine whose company spent a lot on marketing and advertising to suck us in, we did tons of research and discovered – the Kitchen Aid probably has a design flaw, which they weren’t willing to admit. In addition it has only a 275 or 375 watt motor and a warranty for ONE YEAR! I hadn’t thought about warranty’s before, didn’t seem necessary, everything we bought before the Kitchen Aid we still have in good working order years later.
Our research pointed us towards the CUISINART, which we absolutely love. It has a 1,000 watt motor, a warranty for three years with a five year warranty on the motor. It is much more elegant – works better – the top comes up when you are mixing so you can scrape your bowl with ease and it is cheaper than the top of the line Kitchen Aid – with its one year warranty and much smaller, lighter motor.
I wondered why we bought the Kitchen Aid in the first place – and in retrospect – it was because it was extensively marketed, had a great image and we had it in our minds as the machine one bought if you were a really great cook and had a well equipped kitchen.
Well, we are poorer and wiser, but with a GREAT Cuisinart mixer and making better, easier, pastries and other foods with our new mixer.
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