Since the rise of many food programs hitting prime time television such as The Great British Bake Off, Extreme Cake makers and The Joy of Cakes, the DIY cake industry and the cake business in general has grown significantly and is expected to grow by a extra 3.3% within the next couple of years.
With an industry so big and growing, the amount of products you can buy and use to start your own business or to further your hobby goals is staggering and you can easily get lost when shopping online or at the shops for the best product for yourself.
So whether your baking birthday cakes, seasonal and festive cakes on a daily or just your typical desserts and sponge cakes for an after dinner treat, we will go through the best mixers we have used in our cake shop over the years.
Mixers
So lets put some meat on the bones! Mixers whether big or small, hand held or stand alone are amongst the most important tools you need to turn your bakes From eggs, sugar and flour into that show stopper or delicious Victoria sponge waiting to be devoured.
Hand mixers
For the first 4 years of Khalids Kakes, we used a hand mixer and a hand mixer only! We are talking from cupcake mixtures to 5 tier wedding cake mixtures. Can you imagine how many we broke. Khalid believed by doing everything with a hand mixer he was putting his love into the cakes. Little did we know that even with an industrial mixer we were still able to put love and care into our bakes.
For your once in a blue moon baker, this is someone that doesn’t want to spend heaps on the most technical and powerful mixer, a simple hand mixer will do. Bear in mind, hand mixers are predominantly aimed at small or even light mixtures, mixtures that won’t kill the small motor inside.
An example of a light mixture would be a macaron mix, something that only contains egg whites and small amount of sugar. A hand mixer should generally handle that with no problem, it may take some time to get them all important stiff peaks but it will get there.
We’ve had a few hand mixers to start with and the 3 that we will always return to are Russel Hobbs, Kenwood and George Asda.
Here’s the links to all 3, don’t say that we didn’t save you time or mobile data.
From our experience, we would recommend the Kenwood Hand mixer. We have had one for some time now and it has been a good asset for those mini mixtures. It starts of slow and light and gradually you can increase the speed. In all honesty we have used to it made 2 kilos of buttercream with this mini beast so it’s very sturdy. It’s also quiet in comparison to the other 2. Our least favourite is the Russel Hobbs. Its broke on us about 5 times and the whisks are very weak.
Stand mixers
Stand mixers are for those that bake regularly and those that have been doing it for some time so don’t mind spending more money, or even the person that prides themselves on having some of the best equipment for their baking needs.
Stand mixers are the middle-of-the-range product and are quite expensive compared to your hand mixers. Some of the well-known stand mixers such as KitchenAid, Buffalo and Kenwood Chef can easily set you back a couple of hundred quid and that’s being nice. The KitchenAid brand is the biggest perpetrator of this.
We stayed away from KitchenAid due to the price and personally thought they weren’t worth it but they are generally the industry standard and would see them in many bakery setups.
Don’t worry we got it sorted.
Here are the best deals we can find on the ones we have used and know about.
If you love baking a few times a week or thinking about starting off a cake business and want to get out more than just a single cake without getting big arms (do you get the joke) then a stand mixer would be the best option.
Industrial mixers
So you’ve read this far and want to know about these big and pricey machines. Are they actually big, pricey and worth the extra cash and maintenance? The answer is yes, a big fat yes.
Yes they can come very big, like you could literally be 20 stone and hide behind them big and with that comes a hefty price tag for the average in your house, talk of the dinner party type baker. These machines are for the bakers that are constantly churning out cake batter or large bread mixes as they make light work of nearly all types of mixtures and all types of sizes. They aren’t the best looking but they do exactly what they’re meant to do.
You can easily walk away while your eggs and sugar are creaming and come back after a nice cup of Yorkshire Tea and find a beautiful batter ready for the next stage of mixing.
We have an industrial mixer and it’s been nicknamed ‘The Beast’. To date it must be one of if the best purchases we have made when it comes to cakes and business.
Here’s 3 big boys for your business and pocket:
We have one and we can certify that they are definitely worth breaking your back trying to move them into position, once you get going your workload halves.
Summary
As we’ve mentioned it’s very easy to get lost in the sauce as they would say with all the products on offer from hand mixers to the big, fancy and expensive machines. We’ve personally been through so many ups and downs with a variety of mixers.
We would recommend that before you go and depart from your hard-earned cash, just do a bit of research and make a clear distinction between what you want and what you need, as some tools may be cute and shiny but it’s far from Mr/Miss getting it done.
Have fun, spend some and bake some!