I had started making my own cupcakes and I have been testing a range of different recipes that are all slightly different when it comes to ingredients. There is however one common dominator and that is that all recipes require to be whisked be it by hand for five to ten minutes or with an electric whisk.

I decided to make me life easier and to save a lot of time and energy I would invest in an electric whisk as it would allow me to spend more time decorating the cakes as opposed to making the cake mix itself.

I looked around and came across the Kenwood HM220 3-Speed Hand Mixer, which was also on special so I thought it was worth a try for just under £20 instead of the £24.99. I have looked around online and they are now retailing from £18.00 upwards.

This Kenwood hand mixer has a 150w motor and it has a 3 speed option so you can adjust the whisk speed to suit the ingredients that you are preparing, they are suitable for folding, mixing and whisking. The handle of the whisk is moulded so that it can suit the shape of your hand when holding the machine for that extra comfort.

In the box you get the hand mixer, two stainless steel beaters and the instruction manual. The manual just tells you how to use the machine and the do's and don'ts there are no recipes, but then again I was not expecting any as this is just a whisk.

Not only can you use the Kenwood hand mixer to make cakes it also helps to whip cream, beat eggs and mix batter.

To turn the whisk on is simple as it is thumb operated so you can adjust the speed setting with ease when using the whisk. When the whisk is ready to put away there is a cable grip that allows you to wrap the cable around the back body and store away with ease ready for its next use.

The whisk is 13.5cm by 19cm by 8 cm and it weight 750 grams, the machine is white and has a plastic body with The beater of the whisk are manufactured in stainless steel, so that they are kept in a great condition and have great strength and durability.

This Kenwood hand mixer also has the beater interlock system for added safety when using the machine. The whisk beaters can be put into the dishwasher for cleaning and the white plastic body just needs to be wiped over with a damp cloth. When packed away it is compact enough to fit nicely into your kitchen drawer, unlike bigger food processors that can be rather bulky.

When using the whisk you need to be careful not to push the eject button instead of the on/off/speed button otherwise mid-mix the beaters could come out and as they are covered in ingredients it can be quite messy trying to put the back into the locking system.

This is a great helpful gadget when it comes to whisking the cream for eton mess as it used to take me a good five to seven minutes to hand whisk the cream, but the Kenwood hand mixer makes the job easy to do and in a matter of a minute or two on a low setting.

Overall this was an excellent purchase I am glad that I did not buy a higher value whisk as this does the job perfectly. The beaters are easy to insert as long as you make sure they click into position and at the touch of a button they are released with ease ready to clean. The cable is also a great length as I have found with other mixers I have used in the past the cables are quite short, so you have to work next to a plug socket, but the Kenwood allows you to have a larger working space.