Kitchenaid Pro Series 5 qt vs 6 qt

[Kathie]

Ok so I am really tired of making bread mixes by hand and I have a bunch of Gift certificates for Amazon, there is not much difference in the price between the 5 and 6 qt. my question to all of you baking guru's is whether the 6 is going to be too big to do a regular size bread or pizza mix? I can't envision doing the 8 pounds of mashed potatoes its rated for either. Is there a point where the bowl size becomes too big to mix properly? I probably wouldn't look at the 6 except I really like the copper pearl and they don't have it in the 5.
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CD by Biopsy 3/25/88

[celiacmaine-iac]

I have the 6 qt. Kitchenaid. It does small batches just fine IMO.
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Steph

[The Edifying Conscience]

I have a 4.5 (I think 4.5) and it's plenty big. When I make whipped cream, it's sometimes too big.

One my workhorse dies I'm getting the copper beauty! I say go for the 6 qt if only for the finish!!!

[Kathie]

TEC have you seen the copper in person? The picture wasn't worth crap, is it a matte or gloss finish? I can get the 6 in licorice for $53.00 less (mostly because of shipping). Then I found the 5 in Caviar for $120.00 less, which is probably what I should get but......if I'm going to have it until I drop dead I should really like what I get, right.

On another tangent, has anyone tried the ice cream maker attachment? If I get something for the kids maybe I'll feel less guilty.

They're all on sale and they have a $40.00 rebate right now and since I can't think of a dang thing I want for my birthday I thought this would be good.
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CD by Biopsy 3/25/88

[rpf1007]

I make small batches in my 6qt too without a problem.
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Rachel

[The Edifying Conscience]

[aklap]

Peg's got the Pro 5 [5 qt]. She said the 5qt is more than sufficient for her, however she doesn't mix up 18 loafs of bread at a crack.

I mixed up a Bob's Red Mill Pizza crust mix in it on Sunday without problems.
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Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

[cruelshoes]

[The Edifying Conscience]

[celiacmaine-iac]

I think there is a horsepower difference with different sizes. I bought mine pre-GF, and wanted the extra HP for heavy bread doughs. I don't think the size difference matters much as far a doing small batches of stuff. The way the paddle and whisk fit into the bowl seems to make small batches handle just fine. Sometimes I wish I had bought a smaller one so I could get the tilt-head. I find the bowl lift annoying when I want to add dry ingredients part way through mixing. There is a pouring shield for that purpose, but it bugs me so I don't use it.
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Steph

[cruelshoes]

I have the 4.5 quart in cobalt blue. Don't get me wrong, I love it, and am thankful to have it. But if I could buy another one, I would get the bigger one, the biggest I could afford. The one I have really struggles with double batches, which I tend to to a lot. I would love to be able to do a triple batch of bread or cookie dough, which I really can't do in the 4.5.
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-Colleen

Where are we going, and what am I doing in this handcart?

[Kathie]

Well I ended up getting the 6qt in Licorice, though I like the idea of the copper the home it will ultimately end up in has black appliances, sink etc and I just decided it would fit in better. Its supposed to have a bigger motor than the 5 and it comes with that shield thingy for adding ingredients, though as Steph said (and others, if I remember correctly from past discussions), I don't know how well that will work.

I did get the ice cream attachment as I have teenage boys and figured they would get a kick out of it. When we go to KY they love to make shakes in the blender so figured they would enjoy this to. I'll let you know how that works out.
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CD by Biopsy 3/25/88

[aklap]

Enjoy! It will bring years of happiness!
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Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

[rpf1007]

[Kathie]

So my beautiful mixer came, it weighs a TON. So far all we have tried is the ice cream maker, I'm not allowed to use it officially until my birthday although no one is complaining about ice cream.

So the ice cream maker has to be stored in the freezer for at least 15 hours before you use it. Its about the size of the 5-6qt mixing bowl with no handle. The book I used was called Lick-it which is a book of vegan, no dairy recipes. It uses lots of coconut milk and soy or rice milk. We made the chocolate first using the coconut and soy. The directions say it will make soft serve in 20-30 minutes. That's not quite accurate, at least not with these recipes, its more like a shake. The ingredients had to be melted and mixed together than it had to be refrigerated for 3 hours. You are supposed to start the mixer and then add the ingredients so that it doesn't start to freeze up, this is very awkward, both batches I ended up with mix on the mixer head and trying to scrape stuff off the mixer beater while it was turning. The bowl is about an inch thick so you are pouring up against the head. After 20 minutes I added the mini chocolate chips. I mixed the batch for 30 minutes and as I said it was shake consistency, the mixer bowl was also sweating and cooling so I'm not sure how much longer I could have mixed before it would have started melting instead of freezing, I do know near the end there was no longer mix sticking to the side of the bowl as it turned. We froze it for about 2 hours and then it was like soft serve, I had bought gluten free cones and we were not able to make really big cones because of the consistency.

Second batch was low fat strawberry out of lite silken tofu and soy milk with fresh strawberries and agave. It all went into the blender and then had to be chilled for two hours. It to was really soft after 30 minutes so again we froze for about 2 hours. The book says 2-4 hours, but who can wait that long.



The recipes that come with the maker use cream and lots of egg yolks, with high cholesterol I can't do that, but I wonder if that would make it get firmer? It also states that if the beater starts to slip because its so thick its done, (you're not supposed to make a habit of that). We did not have that issue.

After freezing over night the stuff is so hard you have to let it thaw about half an hour so that you can get a spoon through it. Again this may be the mix or my freezer is set too cold. Both batches tasted really good and the boys couldn't tell it was "soy" I put fresh strawberry chunks in the strawberry and I wouldn't do that again, unlike store bought ice cream where the chunks are a little soft, they froze and it was like trying to eat frozen strawberries. After the first batch I learned my lesson on storing it and got one cup containers to put the mix in so that I was only thawing what we were going to eat.

So I'm not sure if the issue is the mixer or the recipes we were using. Overall it was a really expensive way to make ice cream, you can buy a stand alone ice cream maker for about 1/3 the price. This however probably takes up a lot less room and because we have a chest freezer I can leave it in there all the time, which is good because cupboard space is a premium in my house. Other than the time spent between steps it was very easy to use, (other than the pouring in issue), you just turn it on and go back to whatever you were doing. Right now I don't know if I would buy this again or not. I will have to try different recipes, I'm not happy with the having to freeze it more to get a consistency that's pleasing to eat and neither are the people waiting for it to get done.

However if I had dairy issues and wanted to make ice cream this seems like a good book so far.
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CD by Biopsy 3/25/88