The ever-present KitchenAid stand mixer—home icon, house prepare dinner must-have, topic of tattoos and even grasp’s theses—has hardly ever been controversial. Content material to sleep tucked away inside cupboards ready to make cookies or birthday muffins, this century-old staple has garnered little public criticism for something apart from its worth. (The usual 5-quart tilt-head Artisan prices $350; stand mixers from different manufacturers run round $100.)
That each one modified with this yr’s Design Sequence launch: the Evergreen. Unveiled in September, this zhuzhed-up tilt-head Artisan mannequin is an interesting matte military inexperienced with a brass attachment insert cowl, 5-quart pure walnut bowl (sustainably licensed by the European Union Timber Regulation), and three metal equipment: paddle, dough hook, and whip.
It additionally prices $700—twice the value of a “customary” Artisan. Nonetheless, it is laborious to argue when KitchenAid has succeeded in making what is perhaps probably the most enticing stand mixer of all time. And maybe its hottest—KitchenAid says it offered out of its first run inside every week.
{Photograph}: Kat Merck
Regardless, the destructive headlines popped up quicker than a batch of buttermilk biscuits. The Atlantic christened the Evergreen “the $700 kitchen instrument that’s meant to be seen, not used.” Meals & Wine mentioned the wooden bowl had divided their workers, and The Washington Publish mentioned bakers discover the walnut bowl “perplexing at finest, a gesture at aesthetics that renders the product ineffective.”
The accompanying promotional video, that includes hikers and multiple occasion of performative fern fondling, does little to dispel the opinion that this is perhaps for individuals who don’t really bake.
It was not instantly clear, although, whether or not lots of the critics had really used the mixer. As a longtime house prepare dinner and baker who has helped line-edit and recipe-test for a number of bread-related cookbooks, together with a James Beard award winner, I do know my method round a KitchenAid mixer (and have used an Artisan mannequin a number of instances every week for greater than 15 years). I additionally use unlined wood bannetons often for proofing bread, in addition to wood spoons and wood reducing boards each day, so the concept of a wood mixing bowl isn’t precisely farfetched to me.
For 4 weeks, I used the Evergreen as I’d every other mixer, on a variety of recipes—from meringues and cookies to bread and whipped cream—to see as soon as and for all if the offending bowl is definitely usable or if the Evergreen is, as different evaluations have insinuated, merely a kitchen cosplay prop for the well-off.
Hey Good Lookin’
It didn’t take me lengthy to search out one downside: In contrast to on the Artisan’s conventional chrome steel mixing bowl, the Evergreen’s wooden bowl has no deal with. Nevertheless, in apply, this didn’t trouble me as a lot as I believed it could, as I spotted I’m actually solely ever utilizing the deal with to wrench the bowl off its base or to regular it when an particularly tough bread dough threatens to unseat it.
Second, the bowl’s elevated upkeep wants can not go unmentioned. The mixer comes with a card that claims to clean and dry the bowl instantly after use—in different phrases, no soaking off cookie dough within the sink in a single day—and to often season the bowl with food-safe mineral oil, wooden polish, or walnut oil.
This raises one other downside: Many baking recipes, like meringues and soufflés, require whipping egg whites to what’s referred to as stiff peak stage, the place a whisk dipped into the concoction and lifted leaves peaks that stand tall and don’t flop over. This energy lends wanted construction and physique to baked items, however stabilizing whipped egg whites is a notoriously finicky course of, and any form of fats, together with oil, can forestall them from reaching this stage. (The truth is, KitchenAid’s Evergreen FAQ explicitly says to not try “whipped egg creations” within the wooden bowl.) Would the oiled walnut bowl actually preclude Evergreen house owners from making soufflés of their $700 mixer?