Update: Mixer totally failed. The motor sparked and is done for. I definitely wouldn’t buy another one of these and would downgrade my rating to a two.

The mixer is good for doing an occasional bread recipe, and for other light tasks like whipping cream, mixing mashed potatoes, etc, but if you use it to make heavy or dry breads on a regular basis it isn’t suitable. When I first received the machine I loved it. I liked the high quality metal construction, the provided attachments, and the reputation of the KitchenAid name.

Throughout the first year I had no trouble with it. I used the machine once every month or so; I tried a few of the loaves of bread from the included recipe book. I really enjoyed the machine, and it is quite powerful for its rated 250 watts.

Then I bought this wonderful book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, by Reinhart. Only then did I realize how woefully inadequate this machine is for medium use. I started baking bread once a week, from a lighter ciabatta to heavy whole wheat breads and bagels.

The machine vibrates so much while mixing breads that I am afraid it is going to fall on the floor. The pin holding the tilt head on also works its way out, one of these days I am afraid it will fall out and the mixer head will fall off. While mixing dry doughs, like bagels, the motor strains so hard that it sometimes stops for 1 second at a time and makes buzzing noises before it finally is able to knead the dough. This causes excess heat in the motor that I am sure will cause premature failure (it has the electrical burn smell afterwards).

In the last few months the machine has quickly declined, and it is on its last limb. It is only a matter of time before the motor burns up or the gearbox fails. When it does fail I will probably fix it and keep it around as a meat grinder since it has the power take off unit that can run the meat grinder attachment. One of the nice things about these mixers is they are completely serviceable, but I will replace it with a DeLonghi (Kenwood) DSM7 that is better suited for my kneads (pun intended).

As I said, this mixer is excellent for light use, and for a single loaf (or 2 small loaves) of bread at a time. If you intend to bake bread frequently, it would be wise to invest in something heavier duty. If I only used it for light use, I would have rated it a 5.