I’ve Gone Cordless With My Mixer, and I’ve Never Felt So Free
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Welcome to Baking Week on the Strategist, where we’ve been obsessively researching and testing all the bakeware, tools, and gadgets that can make you a better baker. For more, head to ourBaking Week hub.
Of all the tools I use as a recipe developer and author of baking books, my hand mixer is the one I love the most. I came across it about five years ago, when I was shooting an episode ofWhat Am I Eating?with Zooey Deschanel (massive name drop, but how can I not?). We were baking chocolate desserts from my book,Snackable Bakes, and there was a food stylist on set prepping the swaps (the finished versions of the treats Zooey and I were assembling on-camera). When it came time to prep thebuttercream fillingfor my chocolate whoopie pies, he pulled out a piece of equipment that my eyes were immediately drawn to: the KitchenAid Cordless Mixer.
Not only was it sleek, with a comfortable handle and easy-to-access (and -maneuver) switches for speed and power, but most significantly, it was cordless. Perhaps I live under a rock, but I had no idea that a mixer without a cord was even a thing, but I immediately got the appeal (and the mixer).
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Even though I bake professionally, I hate my stand mixer. It’s a hot and wildly controversial take, I know, but I am all about easy baking — I write books about it and I live it — and a stand mixer does not an easy-peasy baker make. It is heavy and difficult to store. It requires endless bowl scraping, as its paddle and whisk have a tendency to aggressively push one’s batter or dough up the bowl’s sides. It tends to require a lot of cleanup — somehow I always end up having to sponge it off when I use it.
My cordless mixer, on the other hand, weighs almost nothing (comparatively speaking) but is still a workhorse that can cream butter and sugar with the best of them, runs quietly, is stored in a regular old kitchen drawer, would never dream of pushing me or my ingredients around, and is a breeze to recharge. The absence of the cord, though, is why I love this mixer.
Because it’s cordless, using it to whip cream or egg whites or to mix dry ingredients into wet is truly like using a handheld tool, like a whisk or spatula. I grab it out of the drawer the same way I would just grabmy favorite flexible spatula. Yes, the beaters are removable and you have to clean them, but that’s it. It goes right back into the drawer, no questions asked, typically with nary a smudge. KitchenAid says the battery will last 60 minutes, but I’ve never tested this since I prefer to recharge each time I use it.
The design also makes it crazy easy to move around the bowl — or even into a second bowl, if you’re multitasking — without having to worry about dragging the cord though your batter, getting it all twisted or tangled, or unplugging it and moving it to a different outlet. The mixer can also rest on the edge of my mixing bowl without falling off or be set upright without falling over.
And finally — though this is admittedly a niche concern — my work requires that I frequently film myself baking. And sometimes, the best location for doing so is not on my kitchen island right next to an outlet. With my cordless mixer, I can literally mix and film anywhere I’d like (including outside!). And the lack of a cord means that the clips where I am using it are just more aesthetically pleasing, as there is no thick black cord hanging out next to my bowl or dangling in front of my body as I mix together this or that. Even if you’re not filming yourself while baking, you might enjoy having that cord out of sight and out of your way, too.
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