Finally.... Kitchenaid...

I have been considering getting a stand mixer for quite some time.  I finally got one two weekends ago.  Some of my friends were quite surprise that I was actually baking with just a wire whisk and a small hand-held mixer all these while.  When I first started baking, I was not too sure how long this interest would last, so I thought I should really hold back on buying a bulky machine to take up precious space in my kitchen.  It has been close to a year since I baked my first batch of cupcakes, and I have come to realize that the initial interest has since developed into a passion.  There are so many interesting yet challenging recipes that I have been wanting to try... and I know a simple hand-held mixer is no longer adequate.  So I started my research on stand mixers... reading all the reviews on the different brands that are available, both locally as well as overseas.  If I am residing abroad, I would have consider Cuisinart, but since this model is not available locally, I figured servicing this in the future might be difficult.  Therefore my search was narrowed down to just Kitchenaid and Kenwood, the two popular stand-mixer brands we have here.  After many weeks of further research and comparison, I finally set my heart on Kitchenaid Artisan stand mixer.  The main reason is because this model looks less bulky on the countertop, and comes in the color I wanted to match my kitchen.  Yes, it does occur to me that this is all very ironical that I eventually based my decision solely on aesthetic factors when I had spent so much time reading up on the features, functions and capacities of the mixers.  Well, I guess I followed my heart yet again and I certainly hope it is not a mistake!  I will be using my new machine a lot going forward... so maybe I will do a review on this product in a few month's time, for the benefit of those might be going through the same decision-making dilemma as me.  So far I have made some chiffon cakes, italian meringue buttercream, and these chocolate cupcakes with my new mixer. 

So far so good, and I am so glad that I now have my hands free to do other preparation work while the mixer is doing the whisking and beating on its own!