Artisan Series 5 Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

A hand mixer holds its beaters in one spot and asks your arm to do the walking around the bowl. The Artisan hands that second job to the motor.

The KitchenAid Artisan is a 5 quart tilt-head stand mixer built around planetary mixing, where the beater spins on its own axis while that axis travels the opposite way around the bowl. The two motions overlap, and the path they trace brings the attachment to 59 separate points against the bowl wall on each circuit. Nothing sits still long enough to leave an unmixed pocket. Power reaches the beater through a direct-drive transmission, gears rather than a belt, so there is no slack between the motor and the work.

Ten speeds run from a stir setting slow enough for folding in dry ingredients up to speed 8, the one KitchenAid names for whipping cream. The bowl takes nine dozen cookies at 28 grams of dough each in a single batch. The head tilts back to clear the bowl for scraping and locks down before the motor will run.

At the front of the head is the attachment hub, which drives more than 12 optional tools off the same motor, pasta rollers and food grinders among them. Four attachments are supplied: a coated flat beater, a coated dough hook, a six-wire whip and a pouring shield. Over 20 colours are made, from Empire Red to Contour Silver, which is a wide range for an appliance, though KitchenAid holds a trademark on the silhouette itself rather than on any one of them.