I love my KitchenAid mixer more than is rational or reasonable. Several years ago, a bunch of my friends pooled their money in order to buy it for me and it hasn't left my kitchen counter since it arrived in my apartment. It's an amazingly useful tool. I know other people who are equally attached to their assortment of KitchenAid products.
Knowing just what good tools KitchenAid makes, BakeSpace has teamed up with them during February to give away one appliance a day (that's every day), all month long. If you're interested in entering the contest, the first thing you do is check out the calendar of giveaways, to figure out which prizes you want to try for. You earn the raffle tickets you need to enter by uploading recipes to BakeSpace, or by getting your friends to join the community.
For more details on the contest or to start your BakeSpace profile, click here. Good luck everyone!
This has got to be one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. I just came across a link to a site that sells flame decals for Kitchen Aid mixers!
The website, FlameKA.com, carries a wide variety of decals that will fit Kitchen Aid classic, the Artisan 4-6 quarts, and the Pro 600. They claim that the decals won't interfere with any attachments. They're also supposed to be easy to apply, long lasting, and great looking. The decals range from $15.95 to $36.95, so they're pretty reasonable also.
I hinted to Santa that I wanted a metallic pink Kitchen Aid with flame decals (I was only joking because I knew it wouldn't happen). The mixer I got was, and still is, awesome and pink. Now I know how to fulfill the rest of my wish.
*Full disclosure: FlameKA.com offers a 10% off coupon for anyone who links to the site. I'm not going to mess around with trying to redeem it, though.
A blade coffee grinder, which is the standard for most home coffee drinkers, has a food processor-like blade that swings around and chops up coffee beans. The grinders are usually fairly inexpensive and do the job of grinding up beans faster than you could do it with a hammer, but they are not necessarily very efficient, nor do they come close to getting the coffee beans evenly ground. Burr grinders, which are more expensive but crush the beans instead of chopping them up, produce even grounds and will generate the most consistent flavor in coffee - not to mention that they offer a range of sizes (from powdery fine to coarse) that work with different types of coffee makers, including espresso machines and french presses.
The Wall Street Journal's catalog critic sat down and tested a number of burr grinders to see which ones performed the best. The less-than-satisfactory grinders included the Capresso Infinity burr grinder, The Krups Burr Coffee Mill and the Cuisinart Automatic Burr grinder. The top performer was the KitchenAid Proline Grinder ($200), which produced grounds to exacting specifications and stored them in a nice glass container before use to eliminate the possibility of static charge making grounds adhere to the side of the container, as they sometimes did with plastic container models. The model given the "best value" designation was the Solis Maestro Burr Grinder ($115), which performed perfectly, but had a plastic grounds container that could have a minim static charge. In fact, it is the grinder that I use and it always does an excellent job - even with dark-roasted, oily beans that can jam up some other grinders. The KitchenAid would make a great Christmas gift "for coffee geeks," but the Solis is probably the way to go in terms of both price and performance.
Many of us only use a large roasting pan a few times a year and even though the meals we are using it for are holiday dinners, where to is important to try to get the food as perfectly cooked as possible, it is hard to justify spending $200+ dollars on a pan that gets so little use. Cook's Country tested some inexpensive roasting pans, all under $100, to see if they would do just as good a job as the more expensive pans while staying in our budgets.
Each of the pans they tested was designed to work both on the stove-top, so they could be used to brown meats, and in the oven or under the broiler. They chose pans with a minimum size of 15" x 11" inches, to accommodate largest turkeys. Overall, they strongly preferred pans that had sturdy, upright handles, which were easy to grip and did not interfere with the way the pan fit into the oven by adding an extra 2-3 inches to the length. They also found that stainless steel pans with aluminum cores offered the best heat distribution, while plain stainless steel could be a bit spotty when it came to browning. Their top picks were:
Homemade marshmallows are definitely one of my favorite candies. Unlike store-bought marshmallows, they are like little clouds of sweetness that are soft, tender and melt in your mouth. They are easy to eat, go perfectly with coffee, flavored coffee drinks and hot chocolate, and are ideal for making s'mores. They are also surprisingly easy to make, and very impressive when you bring them out to serve to friends or family. The only real drawback is that you really need a stand mixer to make them, as it allows you to keep your hands free while you're working and has a very large whisk (as opposed to the beaters of a hand-held mixer) that does the job quickly and efficiently.
I really recommend using vanilla bean paste or vanilla bean crush instead of plain vanilla extract because the tiny bean specks really look fantastic in the finished candy. Read on for the recipe, which I have made and enjoyed countless times:
Pizza cutters are greatly underappreciated kitchen tools because they don't appear to be all that useful. After all, couldn't you just use a knife to cut through the pizza? With a knife, you run the risk of dragging half the toppings along with each cut, not to mention that you might have to saw through the tougher crust, further disturbing the pie as you struggle with it. The beauty of a good pizza cutter is that it is incredibly quick and efficient. It should cut through thin and deep-dish pizzas with ease, producing perfectly clean slices. To see which brands are the best of the best, let's take a look at a testing of pizza cutters.
The best cutters were deemed to be the OXO Good Grips 4-inch Pizza Wheel for Non-Stick Pans, the KitchenAid Large Pizza Cutter and the Cuisipro Pizza Wheel. All have large wheels that will not get gummed up by extra cheese even in the deepest pizzas and have handles that are comfortable and safe. The cutters are also good for dividing up bread dough (I frequently use my OXO when baking rolls or breadsticks), cutting up sheets of pasta and sectioning those giant chocolate chip cookies that kids sometimes get instead of birthday cakes.
If you want to honor breast cancer awareness month, or if you just happen to like pink, there are a lot of options for pink foods that don't require you to get a new set of cookware or buy cookies. Besides, baking your own cookies is much more fun, isn't it?
A good place to start is by looking back at our archives, because last year some food bloggers got together to make up their own pink recipes. Once you've had your fill of those, you can take a look at the famous pink recipes from KitchenAid's Cook For the Cure collection, as well as looking (perhaps somewhat lustily) at all their lovely pink appliances, as well. iVillage has a complete pink party menu that will get you from appetizers and cocktails through dessert. Speaking of cocktails, there are well over 100 cocktail recipes that turn out pink-hued drinks, or at least use pink in the name. Finally, RecipeZaar, a great online recipe source full of user-submitted recipes and reviews, has 156 pink recipes, including one for Pink Fluff, a sweet concoction that can be either salad or dessert.
Whew! That was quite a list, but you should be able to find plenty of pink foods even without using these resources. How about a medium steak for dinner, followed up by a creamy strawberry milkshake?
I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you're going to make ice cream at home, it is worth it to get an ice cream maker. In fact, it is necessary to get an ice cream maker because it ensures that you will always get the optimal results from your frozen desserts. There are a wide range of ice cream makers to choose from, but there will definitely be at least one that fits your kitchen and your budget. After a batch or three of homemade ice cream, every single one will pay for itself in taste alone.
Ice Cream Ball - play with it and make ice cream. It's a great way to give your kids something to keep them occupied while they wait for the ice cream to be ready. $29
Cuisinart 1.5-qt. Yogurt, Ice Cream and Sorbet Maker - a great, easy-to-use all-purpose machine that can handle most family-sized jobs. Keep the extra freezer bowl in the freezer at all times so you're ready to go. Recommended by me (I own this model, pictured, and love it) and America's Test Kitchen. $49.95
It is perhaps every baker's dream to take a tour of the KitchenAid factory, but to do so by
invitation is something that most bakers can only dream of. When you are the author of more than one wildly successful
cookbook, though, it looks like the company will extend an invitation without even having to be asked. Food blogger,
author and chef, the ex-pat American in Paris, David Lebovitz was lucky
enough to get just such and invitation. He visited the
factory in Greenville, Ohio, took a private tour and put on a demonstration of a few things, including rocky
road and ice cream for other visitors. Yes- they do offer tours to non-professionals.
They generously allowed David to take photos along
the way, so every photo in his post is an exclusive look inside the factory. He checked out some of the very first
stand mixers, the assembly lines and the newest colors, like "Meyer Lemon, Martha Green (named after...), Caviar
(black with silver flecks), a cheerful Green Apple, Olive, and colorfully-red Bing Cherry." According to David,
each mixer takes one day to assemble and each employee assembles around 90 mixers per day. One of the things that I
like about KitchenAid is that, in addition to the high quality of their products, nearly everything they sell is made
in the United States, not overseas.
He said that it was one of the most fun tours he's taken, with interesting information and a very helpful staff. Be
sure to drop in the next time you're passing near Cincinnati:
The KitchenAid Experience 423 South Broadway Greenville, Ohio Tel:
1-888-886-8318
Toasters have been around for more than 100 years and the
Slate took on the task of testing eight toasters to see which one was really the toast of the town. Using a highly scientific scale which
judged toasting quality, ease of use, cleanup and value, the toasters were put to the test. After too many loaves of
bread to count, the results were in. The high-end toasters like the DeLonghi Aluminum 2-Slice and the KitchenAid Pro Line 2-Slice finished with the
best scores, though they were low in the "value" category. Generally, the less expensive toasters, like the
T-Fal Avanté
Deluxe 4-Slice and Michael Graves
2-Slice, did not perform as well as their more expensive counterparts.
Their list is a great way to start a toaster search, but Cooking.com and Amazon.com's
customer reviews also provide great feedback.
This has got to be one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. I just came across a link to a site that sells flame decals for Kitchen Aid mixers! 
A blade coffee grinder, which is the standard for most home coffee drinkers, has a food processor-like blade that swings around and chops up coffee beans. The grinders are usually fairly inexpensive and do the job of grinding up beans faster than you could do it with a hammer, but they are not necessarily very efficient, nor do they come close to getting the coffee beans evenly ground. Burr grinders, which are more expensive but crush the beans instead of chopping them up, produce even grounds and will generate the most consistent flavor in coffee - not to mention that they offer a range of sizes (from powdery fine to coarse) that work with different types of coffee makers, including espresso machines and french presses.
Many of us only use a large roasting pan a few times a year and even though the meals we are using it for are holiday dinners, where to is important to try to get the food as perfectly cooked as possible, it is hard to justify spending $200+ dollars on a pan that gets so little use. 
Pizza cutters are greatly underappreciated kitchen tools because they don't appear to be all that useful. After all, couldn't you just use a knife to cut through the pizza? With a knife, you run the risk of dragging half the toppings along with each cut, not to mention that you might have to saw through the tougher crust, further disturbing the pie as you struggle with it. The beauty of a good pizza cutter is that it is incredibly quick and efficient. It should cut through thin and deep-dish pizzas with ease, producing perfectly clean slices. To see which brands are the best of the best, let's take a look at 
If you want to honor breast cancer awareness month, or if you just happen to like pink, there are a lot of options for pink foods that don't require you to get a 
I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you're going to make ice cream at home, it is worth it to get an ice cream maker. In fact, it is necessary to get an ice cream maker because it ensures that you will always get the optimal results from your frozen desserts. There are a wide range of ice cream makers to choose from, but there will definitely be at least one that fits your kitchen and your budget. After a batch or three of homemade ice cream, every single one will pay for itself in taste alone. 
It is perhaps every baker's dream to take a tour of the KitchenAid factory, but to do so by
invitation is something that most bakers can only dream of. When you are the author of more than one wildly successful
cookbook, though, it looks like the company will extend an invitation without even having to be asked. Food blogger,
author and chef, the ex-pat American in Paris, 
Toasters have been around for more than 100 years and 
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