The Rolls Royce of mixers (Kenwood Chef Foodmixer)

Member Name: Chouchin

Product:	Kenwood Chef Foodmixer
Date:	26/09/06 (2101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reliable, versatile, good-looking

Disadvantages: Price, possibly more than you need

This is a serious piece of equipment. Try lifting it! So the first point to make is that, unless you have much more storage space and much bigger muscles than me, it is going to be sitting permanently out on your work surface. Is it good-looking enough for that? Definitely. Light battleship-grey in colour, which adds to its serious, purposeful aura, and with shiny chrome trim, it's an asset to any kitchen.

The Kenwood Chef has not changed a great deal over the years. There's a 30 year-old one in my family which is not very different from mine, give or take the colour, some new curves and re-designed accessory fittings. And that one is still going strong, having only had one small repair in that time. Not only does it look good, it's going to be with you for years. The build quality is excellent, everything about it feels solid, well-engineered and reliable.

This category does not specify a particular model so I should make clear that the one I have and am reviewing here is the flagship KM001. Take a look at the Kenwood site and you will find a family of 5 current models: KM001, KM005 (the Major version of the KM001), KM310, KMC500 and KMC550. The motor size ranges from 1000w in the top model to 700w in the KM310. All have 4.6 litre stainless steel mixing bowls except the Major which has a 6.7 litre. There are variations in the range of accessories each supports, but most of the following comments about the basic functions apply to all of them.

The package I bought contains the mixer, stainless steel bowl, glass blender, beater, whisk, dough-hook, plastic spatula and a nice glossy recipe book. There are many other accessories you can buy separately: pasta maker (2 types), slicer and shredder (2 types), mincer, processor, juice extractor, citrus press, grain mill, multi-mill, potato peeler, ice-cream maker.

The mixer lifts back on a hinge, giving access to the socket for the beater, whisk and dough hook. On top of the machine there is a high-speed outlet and a medium-speed outlet, and on the front a slow-speed outlet, all covered when not in use by chrome plates. These are for the accessories and are not interchangeable: for example, the blender goes on the high-speed outlet and the mincer on the slow-speed. A single control knob on the front activates and sets the speed for all uses; it also has a pulse function for a quick burst. The capacity of the bowl at 4.6 litres doesn't mean much, but is helpfully translated into approx 6lb fruit cake mix, 1½ lb of flour in a pastry mix or 12 egg whites. That is a heck of a lot of lemon meringue pies! The blender holds 1.2 litres (just over 2 pints).

I find it easy to use, and the pastry and sponge mixtures it produces are excellent. Being stainless steel, the bowl stays cool for mixing pastry, and is easily warmed up for sponge mixtures – just fill it with some hot water and put the beater in too to warm. It certainly mixes very thoroughly, and I can easily achieve the “clean bowl” effect when making pastry. Kenwood likes to vaunt the “planetary action” of its mixers: all this means is that the beater base goes round in an “orbit” at the same time as the beater is turning on its “axis”. Call it what you like, it’s very effective. It goes very fast indeed at its top speed, so whisking egg whites only takes a couple of minutes. The blender is robust enough to grind hard items like nuts and ice cubes as well as blend liquids.

Cleaning electrical appliances can be fiddly and sometimes you wonder if it isn’t easier to do the job by hand. How does this rate? As it mixes so thoroughly, I find there is very little left in the bowl or on the beaters, but of course it all depends what you are making. As with all things, it is best not to leave them for hours! All the non-electrical bits are dishwasher-proof, although personally I find shiny chrome goes dull if washed often in the dish-washer, so I do it by hand. The blender goblet can be easily unscrewed from the base for washing, and again it is best if you fill it with water and give it a quick burst on the machine to make the job easier later. Abrasives are not recommended.

The bowl is kept clean when not in use by an acrylic cover. This cover can stay in place when you're using the mixer – it stops flour clouds forming in the kitchen and prevents splashing - and there's a detachable section for adding ingredients.

It makes a noise, inevitably. How much noise is a bit subjective, but at its speed 1 setting for mixing pastry you can have a conversation and hear the phone. It is slightly noisier at this level than my extractor fan. At top speed forget chatting, but it is not ear-splitting and only needs to run at this speed for short periods. It has a 1000w motor, more powerful than its predecessors. As with cars, the more powerful the motor the greater the performance and the lower the noise level.

But not everything is perfect, there must be some downsides? If I think hard I can come up with one or two. It doesn’t cope very well with small quantities because of the shape of the beater and whisk: there has to be some depth of mixture for them to do their business. When fixing the blender goblet back into the base after washing you shouldn’t stand the base on a surface and screw the goblet down into it, as this could damage the mechanism by which it fits on to the machine. You have to hold the base in one hand and the goblet in the other and fix them horizontally, as it were. Oh, and the power lead winds back into the base of the machine, which is handy, or it would be if it wasn't such a struggle to drag it out and force it back in again. Now if they were to motorise that .. !

Its size is not exactly a disadvantage but may be an issue depending on your kitchen. As I said at the beginning mine is heavy (about 7kg) so you don’t want to be lugging it about. It needs its own space to occupy, permanently. Weight wise, KM310 is significantly lighter. But all of them have a footprint of about 40cm x 30cm. You also need to consider the way the top part hinges back, which may make it unsuitable to park underneath a wall cupboard. At rest it is 30cm high; fully raised it needs a clearance of about 50cm.

This level of quality costs, of course, but the initial outlay can be set against the number of years of use you will get out of it. You’ll need to shop around as there is a range of prices and packages. As a guide the package described above costs about £300. The KM005 is about £400 but unless you’re baking in industrial quantities you probably don’t need this. KM310 is about £150, KMC500 about £200 and KMC550 about £250. Accessories range from £20 to £60 but at least you have only one machine instead of several and increased versatility means more usage and justifies the outlay. Don’t worry about obsolescence. There are plenty of Kenwood dealers to be found on the internet offering spare parts and accessories for ranges going back years, and given the life expectancy of these machines there is plenty of business for them! Concerned about changing your kitchen décor and having a colour clash? Hell, get a matching cover for it! This is a classic machine – I’ll never have one sitting on the drive, but at least I can have one in my kitchen!

Summary: A classic machine