Top 10 Best Stand Mixers in 2021

1. Kenwood Chef XL Titanium

The best stand mixer for baking with cutting edge features

The Chef XL Titanium is our choice of best stand mixer currently available. This absolute beast is not only the largest and most powerful kitchen tool out there, but also the most sophisticated appliance to cover your every baking need. If you are making dense doughs in large batches, the power and performance from this machine is the best that money can buy.

The Chef XL Titanium is so called for its huge 6.7 litre bowl, allowing very large batches of a wide variety of thick doughs and multi ingredient batters. This would normally be limited to the power that the stand mixer can provide, but with up to 1700 watts, even the densest bread doughs can be kneaded without the motor batting an eyelid.

Electronic speed control allows variable speed plus pulse and fold functions, on an illuminated dial that is highly visible and can be pressed to start and stop mixing instantly. The halo light under the motor head also greatly improves visibility of your mixture to allow better control over your recipe.

The planetary mixing action uses automatic speed adjustment to maintain a constant speed through thick and thin mixtures, reaching all areas of the bowl from the sides to the base. This can be adjusted with the included tool to change the beater height when needed.

As with other machines in the Kenwood Chef range, several separately sold accessories are available to widen the versatility of this machine. This adaptability is a great argument to justify the high price, as the sheer power of this particular model can lend itself to years of high performance as a blender, meat grinder, and a wide variety of other uses not limited to baking.

2. KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer KSM160

The best Kitchenaid mixer yet is as good-looking as it is well designed

Whether you want delicate fairy cakes or a loaf of fruit bread, the KitchenAid Artisan KSM160 is a fabulous all-rounder that will last and last, and look gorgeous in your kitchen to boot.

While the KitchenAid Artisan stand mixers series has no pulse mode, a lever across the top unit slides through 10 speeds, and while these controls are fairly stiff, the weight of the full metal construction is heavy enough to avoid any sliding. At over 10 kilograms, it’s a good thing this machine is attractive enough to stay on the countertop. This retro style machine comes in 24 colours, engraving options, and a variety of customisable bowls, making it an equally impressive art statement as well as a reliable stand mixer.

The mixer comes with two included bowls of 4.8 and 2.8 litres, a very useful inclusion as recipes will often call for separately mixed wet and dry ingredients. These bowls are a manageable shape and highly manoeuvrable thanks to large easy grip handles. Dough hook, whisk, and flat beater are also included.

The precision distancing of beater to bowl is excellent, using a planetary mixing action to perfectly meet every corner of the mixing bowl within a whisker once adjusted, without moving out over time. The sturdy lasting power of the other components is equally good, locking in and out soundly, although you may find them a little too stiff for the first several uses.

The only thing to be careful of is tilting back the motor head, as it is not spring loaded and you will need to hold the head to lift and lower the beater. It might be a bit heavy for those with mobility issues. The weight is a double-edged sword on a quality machine built to last like older style machines once were. The warranty includes full 5 years parts and labour against manufacturer faults.

3. Kenwood Chef XL KVL4100S

The best stand mixer for bread dough with huge bowl capacity for large batches

If you’ll be regularly making large batch recipes for community events or bread dough for a large family, this value for money kitchen stand mixer will cover a wide range of large-scale needs with an enormous bowl and high powered performance for heavy mixtures, for a fraction of the price of Kenwood’s same sized top tier model.

Stand mixers do not come larger than this! At 6.7 litres this bowl is capable of mixing 4.5 kilograms of cake mix or a whopping 2.5 kilograms of dough. 1200 watts of power easily churns through even the heaviest bread doughs, with variable mixing speeds and pulse setting. The controls are on a small dial at the side, and like their lower-tier models, the dial is a bit flat and slippery for our liking, but automatically adjusts to maintain constant speeds despite variations in your dough.

The power and performance of this supersized machine lends itself well to the convertible kitchen machine Kenwood intends with this range, with many separately sold attachments available to make the most of the high performance motor.

This mixer comes with a spatula, large flat beater, large creaming beater with removable scraping wings, and an aluminium whisk. Also included is our favourite splash guard design, which clips to the motor head of the machine rather than the bowl. This design means the guard automatically lifts up when the spring loaded motor head is tilted back, saving you having to fiddle with its removal.

Our biggest complaint has to be the lack of handles on the bowl. At 6.7 litres, the bowl is already quite difficult to wash in an ordinary kitchen sink, but the lack of handles also make it quite unwieldy to unlock and remove, or continue using when full.

4. KitchenAid Artisan Mini Stand Mixer KSM3311

A powerful mini mixer for smaller kitchens

For those with limited kitchen space, the KitchenAid Artisan Mini Stand Mixer is the best cake mixer to handle a great variety of small batch recipes and other small tasks like whipping up omelettes and cream.

The beauty of this stand mixer is its super compact and lightweight design, taking up a footprint on your kitchen counter of only 20x31cm. Despite its full die cast metal construction, it weighs only 6.5 kilograms, so is quite portable without losing its sturdy operation. The small size also makes it a lot easier to use for small daily jobs like beating eggs and cream, things you wouldn’t normally set up a stand mixer for.

The controls along the top slide fairly stiffly across ten speeds of planetary mixing action, that are fabulous for cake mix and lighter doughs, reaching impressively close to the bowl. The included flat beater, dough hook, and wire whisk perform flawlessly despite the smaller motor, almost too well, as the small bowl can often mean regular batch recipes will splash on high speeds.

The size can really take some getting used to. A standard batch of cookie dough with two cups of flour will fill the bowl half way, so it’s by no means too small. However, the smaller bowl has a smaller diameter, which leaves far less room between the beater and bowl to add ingredients in without a spoon or narrow pourer. You should also consider that if you do need the occasional large batch, you will have to run two half-size batches on the same machine for twice the work.

5. Kenwood Chef KVC3100S

A high powered mid tier mixer that can take heavier doughs

The Kenwood Chef stand mixer is reliable and effective, capable of converting to a multi purpose kitchen machine through a variety of separately sold attachments. Without these attachments, the stand mixer is a minimalist machine that offers high performance and consistent even mixing.

The dial on the side scrolls through 1000 watts worth of variable speed and pulse settings, and automatically adjusts to keep speed constant through dough variations. Unfortunately, the dial itself is not the most informative, and there is no good grip for slippery hands. It would be great to have more visible and intuitive settings.

The mixer comes with a flat beater, creaming beater with removable scraper wings, aluminium dough hook, aluminium whisk, spatula, and a splash guard with large chute for adding further ingredients easily. However, Kenwood offers a myriad of attachments for grinders, juicers, pasta rollers, and graters that are sold separately to maximise the utility of this machine. These attachments can be a little fiddly to attach and remove, so you might want a small spanner handy.

While this model is a fantastic machine for its adaptability and excellent performance, it’s a minimalistic stand mixer at a high price point, so it will really only be a great deal when you can find it on sale.

6. Kenwood Classic Chef KM336

The best food mixer that adapts to versatile kitchen tool at a reasonable price

This Kenwood is a straightforward and effective stand mixer that can convert to a multi purpose kitchen machine with separately sold attachments. The Classic Chef is a simple but thorough mixer that can take heavy loads despite low wattage and light weight.

The manual dial is easy to grip with slippery hands, and slides through 8 speeds plus pulse and fold functions that can easily manage very heavy doughs up to 2.7 kilos despite only 800 watts of power. This allows an impressively long run time without overheating, and planetary mixing means you can leave it to run while you prep other ingredients without constant scraping.

The Classic Chef comes with a flat beater, a unique creaming beater with removable scraper wings, aluminium dough hook, aluminium whisk, spatula, and splash guard with wide chute for easily adding ingredients. The creaming beater is a particularly nice bonus for delicate cake mixtures that demand constant and even consistency.

If you’re interested in expanding the functionality of the machine, Kenwood sells about 20 other attachments such as pasta rollers, food processors, ice cream makers, and meat grinders. The machine has a concealed slow speed outlet under the cover of the front nose, and a fast speed outlet under a cover at the back. The future versatility of these outlets is a great way to keep purchases on an as-needed basis and also allows you to upgrade parts without upgrading every piece you own.

7. Breville the Scraper Mixer

The best affordable stand mixer with scraper beater to catch every drop

Breville’s latest and greatest stand mixer is a simple machine with some great quality of life features to help out beginner and pro cooks alike.

The standout feature for this mixer is the beater itself, which has a silicone edge to lift your mixture from the sides of the bowl as it beats. This is a big time saver in the kitchen because it avoids you needing to pause the machine intermittently to scrape down the sides.

Six speeds slide smoothly from notch to notch on the side dial, allowing the beaters to mix ingredients with planetary action up to 1300 times per minute on 900 watts. These controls also include internal load sensors that automatically adjust power to maintain the speed you select.

Another unique aspect of this model is the bowl, a heavy duty borosilicate glass bowl with a large useful handle that allows you to see the progress of your mixture all the way to the bottom. The glass is highly durable and great to use, but at the cost of being very heavy to move, especially when full of mixture.

The Scraper Mixer includes dough hook and wire whisk attachments for kneading heavy doughs for bread and pizza, or whipping up egg whites and cream.

8. Sunbeam Planetary Mixmaster

A durable mid-tier hard hitter for heavy doughs

The Sunbeam Planetary Mixmaster is a simple and sturdy stand mixer that can easily handle large quantities of heavy mixtures, at quite a reasonable price.

The Mixmaster’s key feature is suggested to be the planetary beating action, that revolves the beater head around in circles to better cover 360º as close to the bowl as possible. While this feature works well, there is unfortunately a decent gap between the whisk attachment and the bottom of the bowl, so whisking small quantities of egg whites will not be possible.

The real winning feature is actually the bowl design, a generous 5 litres with large handle that is optimal for keeping control over large batches of heavy mixes and makes it easier to unlock from the base and continue use during cooking.

This Mixmaster is quite well suited to heavy loads in general. The machine stays quite firmly suctioned to counter and will stay stable through 8 speeds. Despite only exerting 850 watts of force, the spring loaded motor head manages to easily chew through bread doughs without jolting or rocking.

9. Advwin Stand Mixer

A small and impressively functional stand mixer for the price of a hand mixer

For beginner bakers starting out, this stand mixer is a great way to get used to mixing without spending a fortune or taking up valuable countertop space. If you only want a stand mixer to make a few birthday cakes a year, this little cheapie option is impressively functional for the small investment.

Weighing in at only 4.8 kilograms and running only 900 watts, the Advwin definitely feels a little flimsy to use. Despite the included bread dough hook, you wouldn’t want to be making daily bread dough on this machine. However, that small size is a great advantage to your countertop space without limiting the bowl size, which is still a generous 4.5 litres.

6 speed controls are on an easy large LED blue-lit dial, and an easy switch tilts and clicks the machine head in and out of place. All accessories including cast aluminium flat beater, dough hook, stainless steel whisk, spatula and splash guard are easy to attach and remove, and are dishwasher safe.

The usual concern with cheap stand mixers tends to be jolting through heavy mixtures, noisy vibrating operation, and overheating after several minutes of use. The Advwin is the best economy stand mixer because it avoids these problems and is an ideal functional solution for casual bakers.

10. Russell Hobbs Kitchen Machine

A blender and stand mixer combo that has great versatility for casual use

This entry-tier stand mixer from Russell Hobbs comes with a blender and 2 year warranty from a reputable brand, making this a versatile option that is both reliable and highly affordable.

The blender attachment plugs directly into the motor, essentially making this machine a 2-in-1 blender and stand mixer combo, ideal for casual users that do not want to spend the money or counter space on two machines. The blender takes 1.5 litres and is made from durable glass, making it a decent blender in its own right.

The bowl takes a large 5.5 litres, but unfortunately has no handle to make removal a little easier. That said, the machine does not vibrate around too much at high speeds, thanks to suction feet that attach it to the counter.

Those high speeds deliver 1000 watts of power, but may leave you disappointed with heavier mixtures. Heavy dough mixes can cause the mixer head to jolt and become quite noisy after extended use. Overheating of the motor can also be an issue with heavy doughs, we wouldn’t recommend continued use past around 10 minutes.

Variable speed controls dial through a choice of 10 speeds plus pulse mode, offering good flexibility to control your ingredients. The transparent splash guard also helps you to visually assess your mixture while you can add ingredients without pausing your mix. Other accessories include flat beater, dough hook, and whisk, to cover a range of recipe options.

Despite the complicated science inside their motors and design measurements, there are actually not many buyer-specific choices to make when choosing a stand mixer. Apart from needing more power for heavier dough, your choice will mostly come down to where you will keep it, what you want to use it for, and looking for features that will make it easier to use and clean.

Where will you keep it?

Possibly the worst thing about all stand mixers is that they’re heavy and bulky, and this is tougher if you have a small kitchen. Look for machines that store neatly with beater heads in the bowl, and ideally a dust cover or box to keep the pieces contained. Keep in mind the size and weight of the machine will affect your motivation to set it up for smaller tasks. However, if you have enough counter space, some stand mixers are a beautiful artistic piece that you may want to keep on display!

What will you usually make?

If you’re keen to make homemade bread and pizza, don’t skimp on the power wattage, as smaller and weaker machines will struggle or jolt through thicker doughs, and may overheat with use. Most stand mixers come with a dough hook as standard, but you should check with reviews if it’s really designed to take the load.

If you’re more likely to be making wet mixes for lighter cakes and cookies, the priority is on how close the beater head can come to the edge of the bowl. Look for planetary mixing action and adjustable beater height to improve your batter. Cheaper stand mixers may not be height adjustable, which can miss flour pockets or damage the beater by hitting against the bowl. Beaters with attached or removable scraper wings are becoming increasingly common and can make a big difference to creaming butter and sugar.

Ease of use

A stand mixer that’s fiddly to use will demotivate you to cook! Being easy to use and clean is important, so look for a splash guard with a decent chute for adding ingredients that removes and attaches easily. Our favourite design is one that clips to and removes itself with the motor head, so you don’t have to touch it at all.

Bowls that have handles are easier to remove, easier to carry when full, and easier to wash. Also think about the design of the speed controls, a high friction lever is easier to operate with buttery fingers, but controls that are too stiff can be hard on your hands.

Separately sold attachments

Many of the top stand mixers sell separate attachments such as spiralisers, pasta rollers, blenders, grinders… anything that can utilise the power of the stand mixer’s motor. This is a great way to get the most utility out of your investment without buying extra machines. If this appeals to you, always consider getting a slightly higher powered motor than necessary for blending and grinding, to avoid disappointment as the machine ages.