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

I waited to write a review until I had used this mixer for several months. Six months of use later, making bread weekly, I give it a "thumbs up." I purchased this, and use this, only to bake bread -- french style baguettes. When I purchased it, it was unclear from prior reviews how well this worked for bread making. My usual recipe is for three baguettes, and it uses 510 grams of bread flour. This mixer has no problem with that amount. It could clearly do more, if I needed. It works great, and it takes me only about 10 minutes from "get it out of the cabinet and ready" to "dough done," to make my bread. The rest is just dough rising time. I did not want a huge Kitchen-aid mixer, nor need one. This does the job, and seems like it will keep doing the job for many years. It is reasonably light in weight, easy to store in the cabinet, and easy to set up; it stays stable on the counter while in use. In summary, it is extremely easy to use. I like simple and easy.Some reviewers have had problems with the dough hook "corroding in the dishwasher." I have not -- but I never put it in the dishwasher. Be reasonable! It takes all of a minute to rinse the dough hook (and the bowl) in the sink, and then put the mixer, hook and bowl away for next week. The hook works well for making bread dough, and shows no corrosion, and no wear of any kind after six months of frequent use.Okay, it is not the counter-top display beauty that the Kitchen-aid mixer might be . But it works just fine for me, just making bread dough.Addendum: Four years later, after many weekly uses making bread and pasta, it still works perfectly. Highly recommendedAnother Addendum: I was asked for my baguette recipe. This one is really good. Here it is:For three 8 oz Baguettes: 550 gr. flour (King Arthur Bread Flour). 385 ml warm water (use a kitchen scale to measure flour and water); 1 TBS of salt. 1 TBS of yeast (SAF brand instant yeast -- using this great yeast doe make a difference). 1/2 TBS or less of sugar (optional, it speeds the rise, but the dough rise will rise well without it, just take a few min longer or so).Put dry ingredients in mixer bowel and stir with mixer. Add warm water (water should be about 120 F, like warm bath water; use a finger or a thermometer if your finger does not work normally) , mix on speed setting 2 for about 5 minutes. Remove dough and place dough in an oiled bowel, turn it over so it is coated with oil on all sides. Cover with wrap and let rise for an hour or more, until over twice the original volume.Place risen dough onto an oiled counter top. Smash it down, and fold it over. Divide the dough into three equal portions. Take each portion and press it flat onto the oiled counter top, press it into a square or rectangular shape, about 6 by 8 inch in size. Roll the flattened square of dough up, like a a scroll. Pick the roll up, and work the roll (a big "dough dong") out to about 12 inches -- just squeeze and hang it in your hands to stretch it out. Place the elongated 12 inch or more dough roll, with the seam side down, l onto a baguette pan, or onto parchment paper. Do all the three pieces the same. Cover lightly with wrap, and let rise for an hour or more -- it should rise to over 2 times the original size. Start pre-heating oven while the the dough baguettes rises.Place the dough baguettes into a well pre-heated oven at about 490 to 520 degree (depending on your oven and altitude). I use a pizza/bread stone, and put the bread on top of the stone. But any big baking sheet will work. Before placing in oven, spray the bread with a heavy mist of water. Spray more water into the hot oven as you place the bread in -- this gives the steam to help the bread rise a bit in the oven without crusting immediately in the hot oven. (Traditional French ovens are steam injected.) After ten minutes, turn the oven down to 475. Cook about 25 min, until nice and browned.Every friend I have shared this recipe with loves the results -- and they ask for the recipe after tasting my bread. Good luck. It takes about three tries to get the feel, and get it "just right." It takes me 10 minutes to make the dough, from the time I pull out the mixer, to the time I put it away.After the baguettes have cooled a bit, I cut them in half and put them in a zip lock bag, and freeze them. When needed, they defrost in about 20 minutes; I then reheat them in the oven for ten minutes or so. Reheated, they taste like crispy baguettes fresh from the French oven!

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.

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.