Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The good: It is pretty. It has a really nice finish. The 360 degree splash shield works very well. The mixer makes average noise. The average: It comes with burnished attachments, thus you can't was the hook, the paddle and the whip in the dishwasher unless you want trouble. Most mixers come with these. Stainless steel would have been nice. The ugly: It doesn't work well with small batches. Most five quart mixers have tapered bowls that can whip up two egg whites or mix up some cookie dough, or even whip up cream in a matter of a few minutes. Not this mixer. In our test and review of this mixer we performed the following: whipped 3 egg whites - failure whipped 4 egg whites - failure whipped 5 egg whites - borderline failure as we could not get any peaks. Meringues would totally be awful. Perhaps it can whip a dozen egg whites, but we didn't test for that. Whipped a pint of heavy cream using the whip and bowl and the measuring cup all chilled to 27 degrees so they were nice and cold - fail. While it did partially whip, it took several minutes and was not a good quality. Oatmeal cookie dough - Average. It took several minutes to come together. We mixed a single batch of cookie dough, and the paddle barely mixed things at first. The bowl is just too wide and the paddle is just too small to do a decent job. Any other mixer (we have several of brands that we have tested) can mix cookie dough in half the time. Bread dough - fail. The dough hook is too short to even mix the water, yeast and some honey. We had to use a spatula. Never have we had to use a spatula. The actual mixing action was interesting. Using four cups of flour, the shield did a wonderful job of preventing dust. However, we had to pour thru that hole, so the top of the mixer was covered in flour. It took several minutes for the hook to grab enough dough before it could start kneading. Once it started kneading, it started making weird noises that caused concern. It never developed gluten. Overall, this is a very pretty mixer with a lot of features. The Sears' ads are very glossy and misleading. Look to see how clean their attachments and glass bowl is. Pre-Staged. Just an ad. In real life, you must mix large batches so the dough, or cream, or egg whites can overcome the very wide bowl and short attachment pairing. Bread kneading is a bit scary depending on how much your dough is hydrated. The mixer has sufficient power, but it isn't designed very well. It does NOT have planetary action. It spins in a circle around the edge of the bowl. I would say it is "average" at best, but really, most mixers can do a better job much faster. I give it one star for being pretty, but then the finish is starting to show fine scratches in the clear coat where the funnel inserts. Only a matter of time before that becomes more visible. Sears needs to design a useful mixer that can handle small jobs as well as larger jobs. Why does the glass bowl only measure 4 cups up to 12 cups? Perhaps they are admitting it can't mix anything less than four cups, which is a quart (and they don't want you mixing anything more than 3 quarts)? That isn't listed on the box, any limitations, thus a design issue. My advice, please use the mixer for everything you plan on using it for within 30 days, or else you run the risk of being stuck with it.