Hamilton Beach 6 Speed Electric Stand Mixer with Stainless Steel 3.5 Quart Bowl, Planetary Mixing, Tilt-Up Head, 300W Motor, Black (63326)

This is a great mixer! I've had it about 30 days now. I bake bread almost weekly and mix the dough with absolutely no problems. We mix cookies...mash potatoes...with absolutely no hesitation.Now, to address the "elephant in the room". The advertising for the Hamilton Beach 6-speed Stand Mixer has an interesting piece of fluff that might be misleading: "Same mixing action as KitchenAid stand mixers." Taken in the most literal reading, this is absolutely true--it does, indeed, mix with the same action as a KitchenAid. However, judging from other reviews for the Hamilton Beach 6-speed stand mixer it appears that people interpret that statement to mean something like, "A good cheaper alternative to a KitchenAid stand mixer that will do everything I need it to do." That would be in the realm of fantasy and not reality.Right out of the box this mixer comes prepared for action. It comes complete with a dough hook, mixing paddle, and wire whisk. I've used all three and they work reasonably well. There is no provision for KitchenAid type accessories like pasta roller, meat grinder, etc. The 300 watt motor just wouldn't handle that kind of load. Included is the stainless steel mixing bowl that fits into the base and locks in place. The 3.5 quart mixing bowl works well, and, while it is not as sturdy as a KitchenAid mixing bowl, it is well suited for the Hamilton Beach 6-speed stand mixer.One of the things I like about this stand mixer is it's small counter footprint. We live in an apartment with a "pullman kitchen" (i.e. tiny...almost microscopic). This fits nicely on our counter top without weight and size of a KitchenAid. Easy to move around as needed, and the suction cup feet anchor it firmly in place.The controls are well placed on the side of the mixer, and easy to use. One large knob for setting any of six mixing speeds. Above the mixing speed selection knob is a handy speed guide for typical mixer uses--from dough to whipped cream. To the left and just above the speed selection knob is the release button for raising and lowering the mixing head. Care should be exercised in raising and lowering the mixing head as the area just above the release button is a pinched finger hazard area. Using common sense to inform you about raising and lowering the mixing head should be enough to prevent a problem.The 300 watt motor is powerful enough for most of your mixing chores. Remember, this isn't a KitchenAid--which is really more of like a commercial unit. I mix dough for 2 pound bread loaves about once a week. I start with wet ingredients, sugar, and yeast. Adding my first cup of flour I mix using the paddle mixer from speed 1 to 3 until those ingredients are well mixed. Stop the mixer at that point and take off the paddle and install the dough hook. I then add half of my remaining flour and mix again using speeds 1 to 3 until the ingredients are well mixed. Finally, I add the rest of the flour and mix again starting with speed ONE and stepping it up slowly to speed THREE or even FOUR. Using this method I don't find the motor slowing down or any of the burning motor or grinding nylon gear noises noted by other reviewers.We use this mixer several times each week and it works very nicely for us.

I mainly bought this for bread and pizza dough and didn't want to blow $300 on a kitchen aid because I just started baking and didn't know how frequently I would be baking. I also kept reading KA classic reviews that they aren't the best with bread and aren't made as well the last couple of years. The KA pro with 500 W vs. 300 W probably blows both away and the reviews recommend that for bread if going with KA (there seem to be a couple other brands that are better if doing strictly bread), but I am not going to spend $300-$500 on a new hobby that I may stop within a month or two. This is great for someone that is starting out, doesn't bake enough to justify the extra expense, or is buying this for a teenager that bakes, or someone that does not have the money for a KA but wants a reliable mixer.Since buying this in May I have made 1-2 1lbs loafs of bread weekly, a number of pizza dough batches, homemade pitas every couple weeks, muffins weekly, chocolate chip cookies, and even mixed ground beef with seasoning for beef jerky sticks. The bread will also come out much better than kneading by hand and it will save a lot of time mixing which I think is arguably true for most stand mixers because it will mix more in 5 minutes than you by hand in 10-20 minutes.More specifically, for bread, it starts to strain a bit on 1, so I start with that so flour doesn't fly all over and then kick it up to 2 once the flour is mixed in with generally has no problem although it will sound like it bogs down here and there if it hits a dense patch. It will still power through 6 cup double batches and I have even done 8 cup pizza dough batches to make 4 large pizzas which starts to hit its limits. The KA classic reviews seem to say it is similar for bread or the plastic gear breaks so I figure I'd rather burn out an $80 mixer than a $300 classic if it burnt out quickly.... Again, the KA pro reviews seem to say that can power through dough much better, so if I continue to bake this much that may be my likely replacement down the line.Outside of bread/pizza dough it has had no issues with muffin and mixing ground beef (the batter attachment), and my sister has liked it for cakes and icing. Yes, you may have to scrape up some flour on the very bottom with batters once to ensure everything is mixed, but it is not worth $200-300 to me to avoid 15 seconds of manual mixing especially if I were only baking once a week or less. You just swirl a spoon around the bottom a couple times, turn the mixer on for 10-20 seconds and it is fully mixed. Last, I have personally not used the whisking attachment.In summary, is this the best mixer on the market? No, but for $80 it is a great option for an infrequent baker, someone just dabbling their feet into baking, or buying a mixer for a responsible teenager that bakes, or for someone that doesn't have $300-500 to throw down on a mixer. Using cars as an analogy, this is not the BMW/Mercedes of mixers. This is the Honda Civic/Accord, Toyota Corolla, Ford Focus,... of mixers. It is not the flashiest, not the prettiest, not a status symbol, and not the most powerful on the market, but it will reliably take you where you need to go for a reasonable price.

Bought as a gift for my 16 yr old daughter who has found a love for baking....and she loves it. She, of course, wanted a Kitchen-Aid, but for her needs this is a great little mixer.The good- Price!!, ease of use, mixing bowl, dough hook and whisk are stainless steel, fairly strong motor, easy to clean.the bad - all plastic body is so so quality, (but if you use it gently, it is fine), mixing blade is hard plastic (but works fine), would be nice to have a few more speeds,This is a very good stand mixer. I think that for the price it can't be beat. As stated I bought this for my daughter, who absolutely love it! We'll have to see how long it lasts as she is using the crap out of it and I have gained 5 lbs since I got for her. But she is a great baker. This machine work fine, has a strong motor, and for cakes, pasteries, cookies and the like it works great. I can see how some people have complained about the machines ability to mix bread dough (I would not recommend using it for that often) but it will get the job done, if you use a little care). It looks great, works fine (so far) and she has not had any issues with it so far. The "fold" in feature, left you manually pulse the motor to "gently" fold ingredients, it works, its more a marketing gimick then anything else, becasue you can just start and stop any other stand mixer in the low speed setting and get the same results. It will move around with a heavy batter or dough, but the suction cups keep the mixer for running all around your counter. As it is make of plastic it will shake rattle and swing with heavy batters and dough at high speed.overall, for the price this a pretty good stand mixer to get the budding baker, or if you don't need a heavy duty one for normal general baking. I would recommend.