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I will shortly be talking about some experiments whose results depend heavily on the mixer being used, so today I'll talk a bit about mine.
I have a Sunbeam Mixmaster, vintage around 1968 or so. It was my mother's and made many batches of Christmas cookies in her kitchen before I wound up with it around twenty years ago. I remember when it was new. My mom was so proud of it! Before that she'd had another mixer from Sunbeam which I remember as well - white finish with a hemisphere speed control. She must have gotten that one around the time she was married in 1946. Some twenty years or so later she replaced it. Now here it is forty years later, and I'm using her second machine. I have kind of an attachment to it, it having been hers and me having so many memories of her making cookies with it in her kitchen. I may replace it sometime, but I'll never throw it out unless it outright breaks. Someday maybe my son will want a mixer and my mom's will get passed on to her grandson.
I've attached a couple of photos. I wondered if anybody still sells Sunbeam mixers. I checked out the kitchen electrical section at Penney's and, sure enough, there was the most recent version of the Sunbeam Mixmaster. I'll be darned if the newest ones don't look extremely like this one. The price of a new one is $99 today. If the new ones last as long as mine has lasted, that's a heck of a deal - only about $2.25 per year and still getting cheaper. You can't buy too many appliances at that price!
Not that I'm recommending this particular mixer - there are lots of nice mixers including ones with many nice features mine doesn't have. But the old ones, at least, seem to be very reliable, and it's towards the low end of the price range of stationary mixers.
I noticed only three significant differences between my mixer and the newest model. The most obvious difference was the bowl. These days it appears that nearly all mixers use steel or aluminum bowls. Mine uses thick glass bowls originally manufactured by Fire King. There are pros and cons for each. One of the ways to control what happens during creaming butter and sugar is to chill the bowl first. Steel changes temperature more quickly. It wouldn't have as much ability to keep something within the bowl at a low temperature just by pre-chilling it. My thick glass bowl would be much better for that.
The basic problem with glass, of course, is that it breaks. "Gosh, that can't be that big a problem, you've had yours for forty years," I can hear somebody say right now. :-) Well, I hate to say, no, I broke the big one! I had to buy a replacement from Sunbeam. "Wow! That's amazing, they had a replacement for a bowl for a forty-year-old mixer! That's really something!" I can hear somebody else say. Well, I hate to say, no, they didn't. This was about fifteen years ago that it broke and I ordered the new one. When I received it, it wasn't quite the same as the old one - the sides were vertical slightly further down, and ever since then the beaters haven't precisely matched the side all the way down as they did with the old bowl. It's pretty close, but not perfect. That means I need to be more diligent at scraping the sides as I beat something. I was disappointed, but it was then a twenty-five-year-old appliance and I figured I was lucky to be able to get a replacement bowl at all. The take-home lesson there is, if you have an old mixer with glass bowls, don't break 'em!
So whether I'd prefer the glass or steel bowls is kind of a toss-up. I just hope I don't break the bowl again.
Just for the record, the shape of my bowl is pretty different from new bowls, too. Bowls on nearly all new mixers have narrower bottoms with the sides flaring out somewhat, and are significantly taller. I'm not sure why the shape changed, but I have noticed that with my large bowl, the beaters can occasionally fling a bit of dough over the top of the bowl if the beaters are moving when they are pulled from the dough, and with a higher edge that wouldn't happen. Maybe too many bakers got egg in the face - from lifting beaters from beaten eggs. However, I don't mind the shape. Oh, and I should mention I have large and small size bowls, like most new mixers have as well.
The second significant difference is presence or lack of a safety release on the head of the mixer. The mixers sold in the stores today have a release you have to press before you can lift or lower the head. Just one of those silly safety features - but I well remember one time years ago when the head of the mixer fell down when I wasn't prepared, and I got a blood blister because it caught my finger in a bad position. Looking more closely at the design and considering the weight of the head, that kind of accident could completely pulverize a fingertip, bone and all, and ever since my relatively minor mishap I have always been hyperaware of where that head was, and give it special attention. I certainly know why they put that safety feature in, and I wish mine had it.
The third difference is the markings on the speed control. I attached a closeup photo of mine. There are eleven speeds, 0 - 10, 0 being off. Note that on my speed control, every speed is assigned a purpose. I have always thought to myself, "So 7 is for creaming butter. Why not 6? Or 8?" And the same for the other labels and speeds. I was a little surprised to see that the new speed controls are also labeled with eleven speeds, but interested to see that the labels are grouped by threes, with each label assigned to three speeds (or so). So on my mixer, 6 is for "Prepared Cake Mixes", 7 is for "Creaming Butter Sugar", and 8 is for "Whipping Potatoes." On the new mixer, the groups of speeds 6-8 is for "Prepared Cake Mixes, Creaming Butter Sugar, Whipping Potatoes." The new arrangement better communicates the concept that there is a range of speeds that is appropriate for a given purpose, and they are only giving guidelines for appropriate settings. That's an improvement, but I suppose not all that important for most people.
Those are the differences I see. I have no idea what modern wizardry has been worked in the new motors. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if the motors now are exactly the same as they were forty years ago - but they're pretty well buried inside the thing so you'd have to contact the factory to find out. Not that you care. I know I don't care. :-)
My beaters are not the wire kind - each has four flat blades. Most of the mixers these days have the wire kind, but I noticed the new Sunbeam Mixmasters also have the same kind as mine. A saleperson at Williams-Sonoma told me the wire design whips air into the beaten material better. I believe her. Other than that, I don't know what diffence the beater design makes. The beaters do come out pretty easily, but not unless you mean for them to. I don't know if my Mixmaster was originally available with any optional attachment, but my mother never had anything but the two beaters.
As with most but not all stationary mixers, the bowl of choice sits on a platter which turns freely on a spindle. The spindle is a weak point in the design - the mechanism that holds it wasn't firm enough, and now the platter wobbles back and forth when a bowl sits on it, which is kind of annoying. However, once the head is lowered, the weight of the head rests on the beaters which in turn actually put weight on the bowl, and that does an excellent job of stabilizing the bowl so the wobble goes away. That's really kind of clever when you think about it, but the wobble when the head is raised is still annoying. I'm sure it's simply caused by wear after so many years of use.
From the standpoint of reproducing results, the Sunbeam Mixmaster isn't perfect. I've seen some wonderful mixers that move beater or paddle attachments around the bowl by moving the attachment in a circular fashion with the motor while it is spinning about its vertical axis, instead of the baker having to rotate the bowl on the platter by hand underneath spinning but otherwise stationary beaters. The mixers that move the attachments around the bowl with a motor will beat whatever is in the bowl in a completely reproducible way. The Mixmaster would show the same reproducibility if Sunbeam motorized the spinning of the bowl - but that's not how it works. The baker has to spin the bowl. However, I think as long as the baker keeps the bowl spinning fairly consistently, this isn't a big problem with reproducible results in cookie baking. The large bowl in particular tends to rotate all on its own while something is being beaten, and doesn't usually need a lot of attention. What one wants to do is be careful not to let the bowl remain stationary with dough in it while the beaters are on, or the beaters may overbeat some one small portion of the dough. But that's not hard - you just have to remain in attendance on the bowl while something is mixing.
Someday maybe I'll have money for one of the super-duper fancy mixers I've seen. Since they cost $300 and up, that won't be tomorrow! Meanwhile I'll be using my old Mixmaster from my mom. I figure that's fine for this blog, because I bet there are a lot more people out there with mixers like mine than have the really nice ones. I can still dream.
I have a Sunbeam Mixmaster, vintage around 1968 or so. It was my mother's and made many batches of Christmas cookies in her kitchen before I wound up with it around twenty years ago. I remember when it was new. My mom was so proud of it! Before that she'd had another mixer from Sunbeam which I remember as well - white finish with a hemisphere speed control. She must have gotten that one around the time she was married in 1946. Some twenty years or so later she replaced it. Now here it is forty years later, and I'm using her second machine. I have kind of an attachment to it, it having been hers and me having so many memories of her making cookies with it in her kitchen. I may replace it sometime, but I'll never throw it out unless it outright breaks. Someday maybe my son will want a mixer and my mom's will get passed on to her grandson.
I've attached a couple of photos. I wondered if anybody still sells Sunbeam mixers. I checked out the kitchen electrical section at Penney's and, sure enough, there was the most recent version of the Sunbeam Mixmaster. I'll be darned if the newest ones don't look extremely like this one. The price of a new one is $99 today. If the new ones last as long as mine has lasted, that's a heck of a deal - only about $2.25 per year and still getting cheaper. You can't buy too many appliances at that price!
Not that I'm recommending this particular mixer - there are lots of nice mixers including ones with many nice features mine doesn't have. But the old ones, at least, seem to be very reliable, and it's towards the low end of the price range of stationary mixers.
I noticed only three significant differences between my mixer and the newest model. The most obvious difference was the bowl. These days it appears that nearly all mixers use steel or aluminum bowls. Mine uses thick glass bowls originally manufactured by Fire King. There are pros and cons for each. One of the ways to control what happens during creaming butter and sugar is to chill the bowl first. Steel changes temperature more quickly. It wouldn't have as much ability to keep something within the bowl at a low temperature just by pre-chilling it. My thick glass bowl would be much better for that.
The basic problem with glass, of course, is that it breaks. "Gosh, that can't be that big a problem, you've had yours for forty years," I can hear somebody say right now. :-) Well, I hate to say, no, I broke the big one! I had to buy a replacement from Sunbeam. "Wow! That's amazing, they had a replacement for a bowl for a forty-year-old mixer! That's really something!" I can hear somebody else say. Well, I hate to say, no, they didn't. This was about fifteen years ago that it broke and I ordered the new one. When I received it, it wasn't quite the same as the old one - the sides were vertical slightly further down, and ever since then the beaters haven't precisely matched the side all the way down as they did with the old bowl. It's pretty close, but not perfect. That means I need to be more diligent at scraping the sides as I beat something. I was disappointed, but it was then a twenty-five-year-old appliance and I figured I was lucky to be able to get a replacement bowl at all. The take-home lesson there is, if you have an old mixer with glass bowls, don't break 'em!
So whether I'd prefer the glass or steel bowls is kind of a toss-up. I just hope I don't break the bowl again.
Just for the record, the shape of my bowl is pretty different from new bowls, too. Bowls on nearly all new mixers have narrower bottoms with the sides flaring out somewhat, and are significantly taller. I'm not sure why the shape changed, but I have noticed that with my large bowl, the beaters can occasionally fling a bit of dough over the top of the bowl if the beaters are moving when they are pulled from the dough, and with a higher edge that wouldn't happen. Maybe too many bakers got egg in the face - from lifting beaters from beaten eggs. However, I don't mind the shape. Oh, and I should mention I have large and small size bowls, like most new mixers have as well.
The second significant difference is presence or lack of a safety release on the head of the mixer. The mixers sold in the stores today have a release you have to press before you can lift or lower the head. Just one of those silly safety features - but I well remember one time years ago when the head of the mixer fell down when I wasn't prepared, and I got a blood blister because it caught my finger in a bad position. Looking more closely at the design and considering the weight of the head, that kind of accident could completely pulverize a fingertip, bone and all, and ever since my relatively minor mishap I have always been hyperaware of where that head was, and give it special attention. I certainly know why they put that safety feature in, and I wish mine had it.
The third difference is the markings on the speed control. I attached a closeup photo of mine. There are eleven speeds, 0 - 10, 0 being off. Note that on my speed control, every speed is assigned a purpose. I have always thought to myself, "So 7 is for creaming butter. Why not 6? Or 8?" And the same for the other labels and speeds. I was a little surprised to see that the new speed controls are also labeled with eleven speeds, but interested to see that the labels are grouped by threes, with each label assigned to three speeds (or so). So on my mixer, 6 is for "Prepared Cake Mixes", 7 is for "Creaming Butter Sugar", and 8 is for "Whipping Potatoes." On the new mixer, the groups of speeds 6-8 is for "Prepared Cake Mixes, Creaming Butter Sugar, Whipping Potatoes." The new arrangement better communicates the concept that there is a range of speeds that is appropriate for a given purpose, and they are only giving guidelines for appropriate settings. That's an improvement, but I suppose not all that important for most people.
Those are the differences I see. I have no idea what modern wizardry has been worked in the new motors. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if the motors now are exactly the same as they were forty years ago - but they're pretty well buried inside the thing so you'd have to contact the factory to find out. Not that you care. I know I don't care. :-)
My beaters are not the wire kind - each has four flat blades. Most of the mixers these days have the wire kind, but I noticed the new Sunbeam Mixmasters also have the same kind as mine. A saleperson at Williams-Sonoma told me the wire design whips air into the beaten material better. I believe her. Other than that, I don't know what diffence the beater design makes. The beaters do come out pretty easily, but not unless you mean for them to. I don't know if my Mixmaster was originally available with any optional attachment, but my mother never had anything but the two beaters.
As with most but not all stationary mixers, the bowl of choice sits on a platter which turns freely on a spindle. The spindle is a weak point in the design - the mechanism that holds it wasn't firm enough, and now the platter wobbles back and forth when a bowl sits on it, which is kind of annoying. However, once the head is lowered, the weight of the head rests on the beaters which in turn actually put weight on the bowl, and that does an excellent job of stabilizing the bowl so the wobble goes away. That's really kind of clever when you think about it, but the wobble when the head is raised is still annoying. I'm sure it's simply caused by wear after so many years of use.
From the standpoint of reproducing results, the Sunbeam Mixmaster isn't perfect. I've seen some wonderful mixers that move beater or paddle attachments around the bowl by moving the attachment in a circular fashion with the motor while it is spinning about its vertical axis, instead of the baker having to rotate the bowl on the platter by hand underneath spinning but otherwise stationary beaters. The mixers that move the attachments around the bowl with a motor will beat whatever is in the bowl in a completely reproducible way. The Mixmaster would show the same reproducibility if Sunbeam motorized the spinning of the bowl - but that's not how it works. The baker has to spin the bowl. However, I think as long as the baker keeps the bowl spinning fairly consistently, this isn't a big problem with reproducible results in cookie baking. The large bowl in particular tends to rotate all on its own while something is being beaten, and doesn't usually need a lot of attention. What one wants to do is be careful not to let the bowl remain stationary with dough in it while the beaters are on, or the beaters may overbeat some one small portion of the dough. But that's not hard - you just have to remain in attendance on the bowl while something is mixing.
Someday maybe I'll have money for one of the super-duper fancy mixers I've seen. Since they cost $300 and up, that won't be tomorrow! Meanwhile I'll be using my old Mixmaster from my mom. I figure that's fine for this blog, because I bet there are a lot more people out there with mixers like mine than have the really nice ones. I can still dream.
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