Hamilton Beach Stand Mixer hands-on review

Stand mixers are all made to do the same things – mix, knead, and whip. So why do prices range from a modest dinner out to something that resembles a car payment? The Hamilton Beach Stand Mixer is clearly made for those who need the right kitchen tool but with a more modest budget. In this review I’ll tackle the key question of whether or not cheap can still equal good. I’ll put this mixer through the test here in my home by taking it through a variety of mixing and baking tasks—you’ll see why I don’t think the bowl or accessories are properly sized and how the mixer will shake and shimmy like Bruno Mars. Are these major problems or just part of the show? I’ll lay out the pros and cons and let you know if I think I could recommend it for you.

What’s in the box?

In the box you’ll get the main mixer unit itself. Prepare yourself for the fact it is made mostly of plastic. While it has retro good looks, the lightweight of the body does have me wondering about its longevity. Since it doesn’t have the benefit of weight to hold it in place, four suction cups on the bottom will help anchor it during heavy mixing tasks. This model is a tilt head stand mixer and the tilt action is released using a button on the front. The only other control is a speed dial offering 7 speeds.

Another surprise is the mixing bowl. This 4 quart bowl is made of lightweight aluminum, and has a plastic base which locks into the mixer. This is another item of concern for me in terms of how long this mixed material will last in the long run.

Attachments

The Hamilton Beach mixer comes with a set of all the basic mixer attachments.

• Dough hook
• Whisk
• Flat beater
• 4 Quart bowl
• Splash guard
• Motor

The motor is where most stand mixers are made or broken. They must be powerful enough to hold up against even the thickest cookie dough without burning out or overheating.
The Hamilton Beach comes with a 7-speed 300W motor. You may be surprised to learn that that is the same power as you’d find in a KitchenAid classic mixer. While a KitchenAid classic will give you three more speeds for a total of 10, the overall power of the motor is largely the same.

Build Quality

So, how does the Hamilton Beach Stand Mixer undercut its competition with its price? Well, its plastic body screams budget-friendly.

The plastic body makes it lightweight and easy to handle so you can easily take it into and out of the cupboard. However, because it’s so lightweight, it does need a little help from the suction cup legs to keep it stable on your countertop.

What’s most concerning is that the plastic body tends to shake when kneading stiffer doughs. It’s a testament to how powerful the motor is but it doesn’t inspire confidence in its durability, especially if you plan to use this for long mixing sessions.

The attachments, on the other hand, are mostly metal except for the base of the whisk tool. While they’re a little lighter than the ones that come from more expensive stand mixers, they do feel somewhat durable.

Mixing tests

I put this mixer through a variety of tests in my kitchen. I started out making cake batter. Right away I found a significant frustration when trying to cream butter and sugar: The mixer seems to not adequately reach the bottom or sides of the bowl.

When using the whisk attachment to cream butter and sugar it succeeded more in compacting the mixture against the bottom and sides of the bowl instead of incorporating it. This meant I had to stop multiple times to scrape up the sides and bottom to try and get it to mix properly. This meant I ended up taking about three or four times as long to perform this simple creaming task.

Even when adding eggs and the mixture became looser and more malleable, the whisk attachment was still not able to properly incorporate the ingredients. In fact a large clump of batter stuck in the bottom of the whisk and had to be scraped out each time.

While my cake batter did finally come together, I left this task feeling like it would have just been easier to mix it by hand. Not very confidence-inspiring.

Next I used it to make the icing.

Beating egg whites

Making an Italian style buttercream it actually handled the task reasonably well. I was not convinced it would be able to whip the egg whites properly as part of the first step of this icing recipe, so I was surprised to find it was actually quite effective and whip them into stiff peaks relatively quickly. Once I added the sugar syrup it created a beautiful fluffy icing.

Cookie batter

Next I opted for a classic chocolate chip cookie dough. I find this type of stiffer cookie dough to be an excellent challenge for any stand mixer.

I opted to use the batter beater for this task and found like before it took a long time to cream the butter and the sugar. After a while it really just looked like the mixer was pummelling the ingredients not blending them.

The other thing that became extremely evident is that the plastic body of the mixer doesn’t allow it to hold itself steady. The entire body of the mixer shakes and shifts and it actually looks like it’s about to tear itself apart.

Adding the flower to the cookie dough presented a major challenge for the Hamilton Beach stand mixer but surprisingly it was able to complete the task. It did however leave me concerned that over the long term challenging the mixer like this might prove career ending for your mixer.

Overall review

Overall, If you’re a baking newbie looking to dip a toe into the world of cookies, cakes, and bread, the Hamilton Beach Stand Mixer might be a good starter appliance. But for experts who frequently work with stiffer doughs, or need longer kneading times, it may leave you wanting for more.

Let’s go over the pros and the cons.

On the pro side the design is cute and it comes in several colors. It is quite lightweight which does make it easier to move in and out of storage. The tilt head allows you to get into the bowl a little easier and the fact it comes with three mixing attachments does give it some versatility.

On the downside, the mixers plastic construction not only concerns me for its longevity, but it also allows the mixer to shake and sway to the point where it’s actually concerning whether or not it’s going to break itself. The plastic portions on both the mixing bowl and the whisk are also worrying. I found that while it has seven speeds, there’s not so much difference between them and even from lowest speed to the very highest speed it’s hard to see an extremely large difference.

Where it counts, on tougher mixing tasks, it was able to complete the job, but I am concerned about how many times the machine can strain itself like that before it calls it quits.

So is this machine for you? I think if you keep the use to lighter mixing and baking tasks like whipping and mixing cake batter, you’ll probably enjoy this mixer. If you’re hoping for a workhorse that will take on more challenging tasks for you, I would say skip this one and consider some other options instead. If you’re looking to stay on budget, I can definitely recommend the KitchenIn stand mixer—it’s got a cool design metal construction and it looks funky too. Of course you could always save up and invest in the gold standard; a metal KitchenAid classic stand mixer. I’ve reviewed both of these devices and you can check those out here.

The Hamilton Beach Stand Mixer sells for about $119USD or $159CAD and you can get yours as I got mine from Amazon.

Also Read:

1. I tried GE Profile 7-Quart Smart Mixer with Auto Sense in my home: is this smart mixer REALLY worth $1,000?!
2. Amazon’s $50 Dash stand mixer review: what you absolutely need to know before you buy

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