The ubiquitous KitchenAid stand mixer: household icon, essential for the home cook, tattoo theme and even master’s thesis—It has rarely been controversial. Content to sleep hidden inside cabinets waiting to make cookies or birthday cakes, this centuries-old staple has received little public criticism for anything other than its price. (The Artisan with standard 5-quart tilt head costs $350; Stand mixers from other brands cost around $100).
That all changed with this year’s Design Series release: the Evergreen. Introduced in September, this tilt-head Artisan model is an attractive matte army green with a brass insert lid, a 5-quart pure walnut bowl (sustainably certified by the European Union Timber Regulation), and three steel accessories: paddle, dough hook and whip.
It also costs $700, double the price of a “standard” Artisan. Still, it’s hard to argue when KitchenAid has managed to create what might be the best-looking stand mixer of all time. And perhaps the most popular: KitchenAid says it sold out of its first run in a week.
Photography: Kat Merck
Still, the negative headlines appeared faster than a batch of buttermilk biscuits. The Atlantic named Evergreen “The $700 kitchen tool that should be seen, not used.” Food & Wine said the wooden bowl. had divided his staffand The Washington Post said bakers find the bowl of nuts “disconcerting at best, an aesthetic gesture that renders the product useless.”
the companion promotional videowhich features hikers and more than one case of performative fern fondling, does little to dispel the opinion that this might be for people who don’t actually bake.
However, it was not immediately clear whether many of the critics had actually used the mixer. As a long-time home cook and baker who has helped edit lines and test recipes for several bread-related cookbooks, including a James Beard Award WinnerI know a KitchenAid mixer (and have used an Artisan model several times a week for over 15 years). I also use without lining wooden bannetons regularly to proof bread, as well as wooden spoons and cutting boards on a daily basis, so the idea of a wooden mixing bowl doesn’t exactly seem far-fetched to me.
For four weeks, I used the Evergreen as I would any other mixer, in a variety of recipes, from meringues and cookies to bread and whipped cream, to see once and for all if the problematic bowl is actually usable or if the Evergreen is. it is. As other reviews have hinted, simply a kitchen cosplay accessory for wealthy people.
Hello gorgeous
It didn’t take me long to find a problem: Unlike the Artisan’s traditional stainless steel bowl, the Evergreen’s wooden bowl doesn’t have a handle. In practice, however, this didn’t bother me as much as I thought, as I found that I only really use the handle to pry the bowl off its base or to stabilize it when particularly difficult bread dough threatens to break. evict him.
Secondly, one cannot fail to mention the increased maintenance needs of the cup. The mixer comes with a card that indicates to wash and dry the bowl immediately after use (in other words, do not soak the cookie dough in the sink overnight) and regularly season the bowl with mineral oil, baking wax. food-safe wood or nut. oil.
This raises another problem: many baking recipes, such as meringues and soufflés, require whipping the egg whites in what is called rigid beak stage, where a whisk immersed in the mixture and raised leaves peaks that remain high and do not fall. This strength gives the necessary structure and body to baked goods, but stabilizing whipped egg whites is a notoriously picky process, and any type of fat, including oil, can prevent them from reaching this stage. (In fact, KitchenAid Evergreen FAQ it explicitly says not to try “Whisked Egg Creations” in the wooden bowl.) Would the greased nut bowl really stop the owners of Evergreen from making soufflés in their $700 mixer?