I don't know how I lived without it!

I didn't purchase the mixer earlier because I was weary of spending $300 on a mixer, especially when I only did a lot of baking during the holidays. When I was getting married I decided to add one to our registry, and someone purchased it for me. After making my first batch of cookies with it, I wish I had bought it for myself years ago. With a stand mixer you can begin mixing and continue measuring out ingredients. It is also very powerful - I have found that most things are mixed in about half of the time it would take to use a hand mixer.

A nice feature of the mixer is that it comes with the beater plus a whisk and a kneading hook. The different tools are very easy to change. The beater and kneading hook also have a nice white coating that makes them very easy to clean (the whisk is stainless for whipping egg whites). The power hub on the front allows you to connect accessories to further expand the mixer's capabilities.

The only downside to the mixer is that it is quite heavy. It is not something that you would want to store in a hard to reach part of your cabinets. To solve this, I just leave mine on the counter. There is a cover available for it.

While the mixer is expensive, I'd consider it an investment. I know that I will have my mixer for years to come, plus, if I ever have a problem the customer service number is right on the mixer itself!