White KitchenAid Artisan 5-Quart Stand Mixers KSM150PSWH

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I shopped around a long time before I bought this mixer. Based on other reviews and the great reputation of KitchenAid, I finally took the plunge. While it's a lot of money to shell out for a countertop appliance, I've found that it's been worth every last cent. No more scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula, no more unmixed flour in the bottom of the bowl, and it is pretty and sleek enough that I can keep it sitting on my counter!

The pouring shield makes it easy to dump ingredients in, and not get them poofed back in your face! I occasionally whip up batches of decorator's cake icing, which requires 2 pounds of confectioner's sugar. On my old mixer, everything within a 1-yard radius of the mixer would be covered in with a layer of sugar. Not any more. The pouring sheild keeps the mess contained to the bowl and the underside of the mixer head. I wanted a mixer with a tilt-up head instead of the bowl-lift mechanism on other KitchenAid models. It's designed well so that tilting the head back doesn't even knock the pouring shield off with the beater.

I make a lot of focaccia bread, and mave always hated the 10 minutes of hand kneading. So I dumped the dough in my kitchen aid and ran it at the lowest speed with the dough hook. It came out beautifully. Not sure how I ever lived without this.

The only problem is that with the black model, it ends up looking a little streaky if you just wipe it down with a sponge. Be sure to wipe it dry, too! My boyfriend, the cuisinally challenged, put the regular beater attachment through the dishwasher, and it came out with some sort of powdery-looking deposits all over it. Working on getting that cleaned off.

Overall, I would highly recommend the Artisan mixer. It's powerful enough for the heftiest mixing jobs, and was thoughfully designed with the practical cook in mind.