"M" is for Mixer! An Apartment 3.0 Upgrade...

A KitchenAid Pro 600, in fact! Wheee!! Thanks, Internets, for making it oh-so-very easy to locate and acquire expensive pretty things! Thanks, Food Writing Career, for providing me with the suitable justification for this purchase! Thanks, Engineer, for making me hit "Purchase" and also validating my color choice!

This is a shot of its maiden voyage kneading some ciabatta. I've been longing to make ciabatta forEVER. It's such a sticky, wet dough that it's near impossible to make it without a standing mixer. I'm happy to say that it mixed and whirred and kneaded without missing a beat! (More on the ciabatta itself later)

For interested parties, I decided on the KitchenAid 600 over the 500 only after much weighty thinking and wringing of hands. 600 has a slightly larger capacity (6 qts to 5 qts) and a stronger engine. There are other small differences, but since I plan on doing a lot of bread baking with this mixer, these were the two selling points. You can check out the full breakdown on the KitchenAid website.

The price difference is about $100, no small sum for someone relatively unemployed such as myself. But in the end, I decided that down the line I'll be more grateful to have the mighter power of the Pro 600 than the extra $100.

One small problem I've noticed so far--the mechanism for lifting the bowl up to the mixer-head really jerks and clunks. It locks in place and unlocks again without any problems, but the lifting and lowering reminds me of one of those creaky portcullises (portcullisi?) from medieval castles.

I've never had this experience with any other KitchenAid, and at first I just thought it needed some time to let the lubricant work into the gears and whatnot. But after raising and lowering the lift several dozen times and talking to a few fellow KitchenAid owners, I think this is actually a problem. Maybe the lifter-belt-thingy got thrown off the track during shipping? Who knows. I poked around the internet this afternoon trying to see if anyone else had this problem, but didn't come up with much. In any case, I'm going to call KitchenAid tomorrow and see what they think.

I'm not actually all that worried about it. KitchenAid has a great reputation for both their mixers and their service, and I'm sure it will get sorted out. I'm just happy it works and that I can still play with it in the meantime.

So...yay! Mixer! Ciabatta! Bing...Level Up!