I was introduced to the world of stand mixers by purchasing a 6 quart Kitchen Aid professional mixer. I stripped the gears within the years no fault warantee period and was sent a new mixer. After another year I was fed up with the noise from the Kitchen Aid and decided to buy a new mixer. The noise from each of the Kitchen Aids was similar to a helicopter hovering in my kitchen. I consulted with a Kitchen Aid repair center and found that the mixer was supposed to be that noisy because of the offshore parts that were used to build the units. I gave my neighbor the Kitchen Aid along with a set of earplugs. I felt with the excessive noise it I was doomed for another gearbox failure.
I'm sure many people will feel that $500.00 plus for a stand mixer is excessive. That might be the case until you own one. The Viking 7 Quart 1000 watt mixer I purchased runs quitely and mixes all the ingredients with hardly any scraping needed. The gears are metal as are the ones in the Kitchen Aid, but are machined to closer tolerances so as to operate quietly. The dough hook and the mixing tool are both constructed from polished stainless steel as opposed to cast aluminum for the Kitchen Aid. A tilt head on the Viking gives you much better access to the huge mixing bowl. I know that the Viking will perform any task I ask of it. A word of caution however. None of these mixers were designed to take hard butter from the refrigeratorand blend it into butter at room temperature. A few seconds in the microwave on defrost solves the problem.
The Viking is overkill for the average home chef, but if you really enjoy baking, preparing masa for homemade tamales, or cooking for a crowd then this machine is for you. With good care it will be around to pass down to your children. I feel that my purchase is money well spent.
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