KitchenAid Artisan 5-Quart Stand Mixers

-----> This may help some of you - I read a review somewhere in which the reviewer gave this mixer a poor rating because it left dry ingredients in the bottom of the bowl - read the instruction booklet, people. It clearly states that if this occurs (or if the attachments scrape the bowl), there is an adjustment screw that raises or lowers the mixing assembly. I had to slightly lower mine and it now incorporates everything into the mix. The KitchenAid mixers are well worth the money....or you can keep buying junk mixers every couple years...the choice is yours.


Best Mixer Ever! Love, Love, Love it! A+A+A+A+   September 26, 2003
Mrs. Romano (Boston, MA United States)
203 out of 206 found this review helpful

This KitchenAid mixer is an excellent investment! I just love mine! The dough hook attachment is the greatest invention ever. No more kneading! I used this wonderful machine to make 4 pounds of Pizza Geina dough without breaking a sweat. Add your ingredients, turn it on and it does the rest! It has a very powerful motor and every part of this mixer is excellent quality and well made. It is simple to lock in the mixing bowl and it is also a breeze to clean. The different attachments are very easy to attach and remove. It would be impossible not to love it! Did I mention how easy the clean up is? I love it so much I bought the KitchenAid quilted cover for it. Once you use this mixer you will never want to use anything else! The Best!!!


A wonderful appliance - good customer support   January 21, 2004
Kathleen (Tijeras, NM United States)
199 out of 201 found this review helpful

My wedding gift mixer (a Sunbeam Mixmaster) turned 33 a week before Christmas, and my husband thought it was time for me to have a new one. He gifted me on Christmas with the KitchenAid 5 Qt. Artisan in white. I love this mixer and leave it out on my counter, something I never did with the Mixmaster. I recently purchased the citrus juicer attachment from Amazon and am very pleased with it as well. I have not read all 109 previous reviews on this site, but I have read a few that were disgruntled because their Artisans did not mix well. I initially had the same problem with the beater/bowl clearance. It is very simple to remedy. There is a beater adjustment screw on the mixer and the manual describes how to make the adjustments. I got even better instructions by calling customer support at KitchenAid. The technician told me to drop a dime into the empty bowl, turn the mixer on (about setting 2) using the flat beater, and it should move the dime 1/4" to 1/2" each time it rotates around the bowl. This is the right clearance for the beater to mix everything at the bottom of the bowl, but not low enough to cause wear on the beater from constant friction with the bottom of the bowl during usage. I tweaked the screw setting 1/4 turn each time until I got that dime moving. At this setting, I can now beat a single egg white to stiff peaks in the 5 qt. bowl. That's impressive.
This mixer is as sturdy as a tank, and you can hear the quality as it mixes. Although I had previously purchased a KitchenAid mixer for my daughter as a gift, I would never have splurged on one for myself. I am so happy my husband thought I was worth it!


What a great mixer!   October 11, 2002
87 out of 90 found this review helpful

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.


The best of the best   August 22, 2006
T. K. Kenyon (www.tkkenyon.com)
77 out of 80 found this review helpful

I have celiac disease, which is essentially an allergy to wheat protein, and I've been GF for 5 years now. (Why does that sound like I'm at an AA meeting?) When I first started baking all my own breads, cakes, etc., from scratch, the books said that I needed a bread machine. I bought one and it didn't work so well with the GF "funny flours." A book finally told me to forget about the machine, buy a stand mixer and use the oven. Brilliant!

I bought my Kitchenaid and haven't looked back. I use this thing at least twice a week, sometimes every day. I don't know how I lived without it. My mom just bought one after she saw me calmly measuring stuff and dumping it in while the mixer mixed all by it itself. (She's been suffering with a handheld all these years.) Stand mixers also mix more thoroughly than handhelds. They also can mix chocolate chip cookie dough all the way to the end of the flour additions.

I've had my Kitchenaid for about 5 years now, though 3 moves, and it's still as sturdy and reliable as the day I bought it. The paint is still perfect. Not a scratch. Certainly not a chip. It's beautiful and lustrous. I have Onyx Black. While I like the look of the Onyx a lot, it's obvious if there's a little flour dusting the top of it. This makes it convenient to clean, but if you don't use it very often but do want it out, you might want to choose a lighter color that won't show dust.

Caveat: It's heavy. B/c I use mine so much, I display it on my counter, drag it forward, use it, wipe it off with a damp rag, and push it back. (And wash the bowl, of course.) But it's worth it's weight in gold. They are a lovely appliance. Not like a frumpy toaster.

Also, a previous review somewhere said that it left dry ingredients in the bottom of the bowl and didn't incorporate them. There's an adjustment screw that you have to fine-tune before you use it. Instructions are in the booklet. I adjusted mine before I used it for the first time (I compulsively read instructions,) and never had that problem.

Buy yourself a proper mixer. You'll be so glad you did.

TK Kenyon
Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel