Hand Mixers or Stand Mixers what is ideal for you

Whether you’re new to the kitchen or an advanced cook, there are a few appliances that are must-have. Hand mixers are one of them. These electric mixers help you mix batters with ease, without putting too much strain on your hands. You might have seen them being used in many of our cooking videos too. Besides these handy ones there is another kind of an electronic mixer called as a Stand Mixer, which are bigger and more heavy duty than hand mixers. While both these run electrically and are used to mix ingredients, what actually makes them stand apart each other? Let’s find out.

Design

Hand and the stand mixers look quite different from each other. Their appearance is co-related to the task they’re designed to do. Hand mixers are light, portable , relatively handy and mobile. It consists of a light motor that is designed to whisk and mix light dough and batters. Its small form-factor makes it easy to store at home as they can easily fit into tiny cabinets and shelves. Stand mixers on the other hand are bigger and are designed to stay at one place, where it holds the bowl to mix into. The reason it is stationary is because it comes with a very heavy motor with a lot more power than the hand mixers. This motor holds the power to knead dough to make bread or cookies, that the hand mixer motor just isn’t capable to do. 

Hardware

Hand mixers are designed to be light-weight and portable, so they are fitted with a light, low-powered motor. Usually the wattage on hand mixers ranges from 200 to 250 watts and they work just fine to make icing, beat eggs or make delicious pancake and cake batter. Try mixing heavier flour dough and the motor won’t have the necessary torque to run through the heavy elements, resulting in the hand mixer getting hotter and getting damaged in the long run. 

Stand mixers start at a wattage of over 250 watts with the usual wattage being 500 watts. Anything less than 250 watts is just a hand mixer on a stand. Some heavy duty stand mixers come with a 1000 watt motor too. The heavier motor on the inside means more torque. Torque basically means rotational force of the motor that it can apply. The excess torque makes it perfect to deal with denser elements like dough for bread, pizza or cookie. It can also be used to make larger batches of icing or other liquids. Some stand mixers also come with an elliptical motion which ensures an even mixture that hand mixers cannot even come close to.

Utility

As mentioned before, hand mixers are perfect to mix light batters and soft dough. You can beat eggs, whisk icing, mix cake batter, brownie batter, pancake batter etc. Since the motor isn’t powerful enough it cannot work with dense dough.

Stand mixers can do everything a hand mixer can, however, it is perfect when working with larger batches. Moreover their powerful motor makes them perfect for dough work. Kneading with hand can get quite tiring and kneading the dough for a specific time is crucial as you want the formation of gluten to occur in the appropriate amount. Being lazy with kneading time won’t yield good results, so getting an electronic stand mixer is ideal. All you need to do is just add the components into the bowl and the machine will take care of the rest while keeping your hands free. 

Attachments

Hand mixers usually get a regular universal whisking attachment that works with almost everything. Some hand mixers also come with a dough hook, but it is mostly pointless as the motor just isn’t powerful enough to deal with dough.  Stand mixers get a bigger ball whisk attachment for mixing liquids as well as a paddle attachment and a dough hook. The dough hook and paddle attachments are used to work with all kinds of dough. Some stand mixers also come with additional attachments that can help you create pasta, minced meat and make sausages. This makes stand mixers far more versatile than a hand mixer.

What should you buy?

What you should buy entirely depends on what are you planning to make in the long run. If you’re looking for a reliable tool to mix liquids and semi-liquid batters, a hand mixer is the perfect choice. It can help you make small batches of cakes and other desserts and savouries. They’re also pretty reasonable as a decent branded hand mixer can cost around Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500. 

However, if you’re someone who wants to bake cookies, bread, pastries, where you will be involved in dealing with a lot of dough, stand mixers make the perfect sense. Stand mixers are on an expensive side where a decent branded mixer starts as Rs 15,000 and goes up to even Rs 40,000. While this might seem too much when compared to the price of a hand mixer, the utility a stand mixer provides is unparalled and is truly value for money.

Both stand mixers and hand mixers are perfect in the tasks they do, but something as inexpensive as a hand mixer is a must-have in your kitchen arsenal.