Since they require so little maintenance and take up so little counter space, hand mixers are an obvious choice for every kitchen. If you need to whisk up some cookie dough, whipped cream, or cake mix quickly but want to spend less time and money than you would on a stand mixer, hand mixers are the way to go. They can even knead the dough and mix soup in some situations.
We spent several weeks comparing and contrasting eight widely regarded hand mixers to choose the winner. To determine the finest alternative for all baking and mixing needs, we prepared (and ate) a lot of sponge cakes and put them through their paces.
Our testing methodology
The evaluation of these hand mixers was exhaustive, the food was of the highest quality, and it took place for over a month. We set out to thoroughly evaluate these kitchen necessities to understand better the needs of those shopping for a hand mixer. We cleaned our beaters and dunked them into cookie dough, cake batter, and pizza dough. We made extensive notes on which mixers were most comfortable in our hands and performed best in the mix, as well as which ones were most durable and would stand up to repeated usage.
The King: Cuisinart Power Advantage Plus 9-Speed Handheld Mixer
This gadget immediately impressed us upon opening the box. The polished chrome design would benefit all kitchens because it is sleek, contemporary, and classic.
For the whipped cream test, the mixer fired up and whisked medium peaks in five minutes, followed by stiff peaks in 30 seconds. In just five minutes, it whipped egg whites into a meringue. Except for the Breville, which only took three minutes, all the mixers took roughly the same time to beat the cream into soft peaks. However, the Cuisinart particularly impressed us because its first three settings (out of nine) were so mild and moderate. We never got meringue or whipped cream on our clothes or the kitchen surfaces while making them.
We tested the mixer by producing a basic sponge cake with eggs, cake flour, and granulated sugar. This recipe required the mixer to incorporate air into the eggs, resulting in a light, airy cake that was easy to slice. To prevent the formation of substantial air holes in the cake, the eggs and sugar must be mixed for at least 20 minutes. A lightweight, easily maneuverable hand mixer is essential for maintaining the necessary stamina, as baking is a true test of the baker’s ability and patience.
The Cuisinart was perfect for this kind of extended work because of its slight weight and the proximity of its variable speed controls. We prepared ten cakes in total, and this one turned out the best because of its light, airy rise, and lack of dryness.
We also put the mixers through their paces by creating a batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies from a mix. The Cuisinart’s wire beater attachments made quick work of the heavier ingredients, thoroughly blending the bowl in under two minutes. In contrast to a few other mixers we evaluated, this one kept the heavier components in the bowl while allowing lighter ones, like egg whites and cake batter, to flow freely. We also tested Cuisinart’s kneading hooks with a basic pizza dough recipe. The machine performed admirably, achieving a good rise and resulting in a dough with a crispy and chewy crust.
This appliance is easy to operate and produces professional-quality baked items. Thanks to the LED display, which shows a basic number, and the eject button, located under the handle and activated by a press, you can tell exactly what level you’re on. All the attachments came out in one piece so that they could be cleaned in the dishwasher or by hand with no effort. The Cuisinart was easy to clean after testing because no dough or batter spilled during operation. We just wiped it down with a moist cloth.
It’s so much fun to use the Cuisinart that we’ve grabbed it for jobs where we wouldn’t ordinarily reach for a mixer, like making mashed sweet potatoes. If you have a hand mixer, there’s no reason to waste your time mashing by hand.
Finally, the attachments and power cord may be put away in the mixer’s snap-on storage container at the bottom, making the mixer taller rather than wider. The ability to increase kitchen storage space without increasing the area’s overall size is remarkable. This is an excellent feature if you’ve ever spent 10 minutes complaining while you rummage around in the depths of your kitchen drawers looking for the attachments for your mixer.
The Cuisinart HM-90BCS 9-Speed Handheld Mixer was our favorite because of its professional-grade whipping power, user-friendliness, and convenient carrying case. This mixer will see frequent use in the kitchen and will be a staple in our appliances.
The Queen: Breville BHM800SIL Hand Mixer
The Breville BHM800SIL Hand Mixer is like a sports car of kitchen appliances because of its sleek design, a wide range of uses, robust motor, and lightning-fast speed. Those who can afford it will find that the extra cost for this mixer compared to a Cuisinart is more than justified.
The Breville is a tremendous powerhouse of a mixer. Thanks to its sleek design and modern lines, it also looks great when you open the box for the first time. Unlike most of our testing pool, which consisted of single-whisk mixers, we immediately employed it to prepare whipped cream and meringue with the double whisk attachments. Since the two whisks in this mixer functioned with more force and speed than the single whisk in most others, this was a little tricky to master at first.
Whipping the cream and meringue took less than three minutes each; however, they both sprayed a fair amount of fluff all over the kitchen as they were made. We found that tilting the bowl to one side helped minimize the amount of splash.
The dough for the sponge cake was added gradually, and the mixer handled it efficiently, producing a high-rising cake that was straightforward to slice and didn’t produce a lot of crumbs. The machine’s weight was the only real drawback. Our arms got a good workout from the combination of weight and force required to hold and steady it for the lengthy period of time needed to mix the cake.
When it comes to speed, this mixer wins hands down, never slowing down, not even when loading it up with thick materials. The oatmeal cookies were the fastest to go from the mixing bowl to the baking sheet, thanks to the mixer’s strong and speedy beating ability. Everything stayed where it belonged in the bowl and was well blended. The Breville’s dough hooks are powerful and well-made, creating a manageable, non-sticky dough resulting in a perfectly crisp pizza.
The Breville wasn’t nearly as user-friendly as the Cuisinart; however, some problems could be personal preference. It took some time to acclimate to the machine’s weight and bulkiness. The controls were intuitive; however, using the mixer became tiresome due to the strain it put on our arms.
Ejecting and cleaning up the attachments was simple because the corresponding button is well-designed and easy to use.
The Breville may be more expensive, but it has several unique features that make it superior to the competition, such as scraper beaters covered in rubber that prevent dough from sticking to them and keep the mixer running quietly. However, several buyers on Amazon complained that the rubber casing peeled away after prolonged usage; we didn’t notice this throughout our monthly testing, but we could see how they might wear out with time. However, the covering dampened extraneous noise, and the Breville was remarkably silent, producing just a faint, high-pitched whine.
The absence of batter on the beaters can be seen as either a benefit or a problem, depending on how much you enjoy nibbling on raw cookie dough straight from the mixer. You can also see the ingredients as you mix using the mixer’s built-in mixing light, which is helpful for beginners (or for sneaky mixing at night? ), but not something we’d need.
Finally, the Breville has a snap-on compartment and a swivel cable, both very convenient additions. The swivel cable makes moving the mixer around in the bowl easy, even if working in a tight or otherwise inconvenient environment.
If fancy kitchen gadgets excite you, but money is no object, consider this Breville. The Breville BHM800SIL is a high-end mixer worth every penny thanks to its sleek design, powerful motor, nine-speed options, six attachments, and built-in headlamp.
The Prince: Hamilton Beach 6-Speed Electric Hand Mixer
We couldn’t help but fall in love with this gleaming white workhorse with a surprisingly solid feel for its modest price.
We had no splattering when using the Hamilton Beach mixer, which has six settings and a gradual start-up, ideal for delicate work. However, compared to more expensive models, it took longer (five minutes for egg whites to become meringue and five and a half minutes for heavy cream to become whipped cream) using only the single whisk attachment.
When we pressed the “quick burst” button, it sped up to its maximum speed, which completed the meringue beautifully, creating plenty of peaks and the desired fluffy stiffness sought by bakers.
When making the sponge cake, we had an almost ideal batter. The Hamilton Beach’s portability and bowl rest (grooves on the side to support the mixer on the bowl when mixing) made quick work of the 20-minute task of gradually incorporating sugar into the eggs. We have yet to learn why this feature isn’t standard on all hand mixers. After baking, the cake was airy and fluffy, with minimal crumbling upon slicing.
This compact appliance worked wonderfully for quickly and evenly mixing cookie dough. It did everything we needed: the ingredients blended together and stayed in the basin as we mixed up a speedy batch of cookies. However, due to the square design of the typical beaters, they managed to save the equivalent of around half a cookie’s worth of dough.
This mixer was a breeze to use because of how light it was. It took some time to figure out how to get the attachments ejected (you had to give them a good pull), but once you did, it was straightforward and quick to clean. As there was very little overspill when using this device, cleanup was a breeze.
Due to the lack of dough hooks, we could not evaluate the mixer’s ability to knead the dough. Additionally, it had snap-on housing for the accessories and cord, making it the only inexpensive mixer of its kind.
The lack of dough hooks and somewhat longer whip time than our top picks hurt Hamilton Beach’s overall score. Still, Hamilton Beach is a good alternative if you’re on a budget and are looking for a compact, convenient tool.
Other options
KitchenAid Ultra Power 5-Speed Hand Mixer
This KitchenAid mixer scored the highest (albeit much lower than our selections above) and was the least expensive of all the tested models, proving that sometimes less is more. It’s available in several hues, like purple and red, to help you find something that works with the decor of your kitchen, and it has a charming retro appearance.
In less than five minutes, it made fluffy meringue and whipped cream. Changing speeds was straightforward and did not produce any messes. The mixer was lightweight enough that mixing sponge cake batter wasn’t a hardship. If we’d been able to consume cake at that stage in evaluation, we’d say the dense, but airy sponge cake was ideal. It processed the more substantial cookie mix without producing a mess, although it was notably slower than our top option. The fact that it lacked kneading attachments was also a minus.
The mixer was easy to move about, but scraping the dough from the bottom of the bowl was a hassle because of how light it was. Unlike more expensive ones, this mixer had a straightforward up/down button for speed that functioned as intended. We had to click the release button multiple times before the attachments popped off, but once they were free, they were simple to clean up.
Dash Smart Store Compact Hand Mixer
The mixer attachments of this compact hand mixer are stored neatly against the mixer’s body out of the box. Its thin profile makes it comfortable to carry, and it’s easily stored in most kitchen drawers.
We whisked egg whites and whipped cream using the Dash Mixer’s essential beater attachments, and both tasks took less than five minutes and produced no spatter. The cake and cookie batter turned out poorly. Our mixer couldn’t handle the weight of the dough, so when we gave it a good old-fashioned slam, the dry ingredients in the bowl poofed out a little and scattered around the countertop.
Mixing the sponge cake took a long since the mixer cord was in the way. Our cake turned out dry and sad because we had trouble getting the batter just right; the sugar didn’t combine as we intended.
The attachments seemed fragile and slipped apart when we dropped the machine, and the Dash Mixer rattled cheaply when we turned up the speed.
KitchenAid 9-Speed Architect Hand Mixer
Nine settings are available, and the mixer’s sleek design makes it easy to use. Even though the bowl almost slipped out of our hands when we checked the dough hooks, we gritted our teeth and persevered. The machine had little trouble churning through the concentrated ingredients in the oatmeal cookies and concocted meringue and whipped cream in minutes. This machine was exceptionally potent and shook in our hands as we tried to proceed slowly while combining the sugar into the eggs for the sponge cake.
The mixer’s lack of useful features was the main drawback. The up and down speed buttons are separated by a little raised silver piece that seems to be there purely for design. Still, in practice, moving between the two speeds is quite challenging. Unfortunate design decisions caused the batter to scatter. We also investigated Amazon customer reviews and found similar feedback. The whisk was also a bit weak, in our opinion. The milkshake/smoothie blender rod is a lovely touch but can’t replace your regular blender or Nutribullet. As a bonus, it includes a fabric bag for stowing away your accessories, which is lovely but less practical than the in-unit compartments seen on our top picks.
Black + Decker Lightweight Hand Mixer
The Black + Decker is a simple mixer with a traditional design, five speeds, and a manageable weight.
When we put it to the test, it took six minutes to whip up whipped cream and meringue and had less power than some of the more expensive mixers we tried. We used the extra power to assist the cake mixture in becoming light and airy, and the cake baked up nicely and to a good height. The heavy ingredients clogged the machinery and splattered cookie mix all over our clothing and face (really!).
The beater attachments were also a pain to clean, and they clung tenaciously to whatever we tossed into the mixer. The mixer, which had been covered by spatter, was easily cleaned with water and soap. Overall, the construction was satisfactory; the mixer did not rattle and felt solid, although it was the noisiest model we tried.
KitchenAid 7-Speed Digital Hand Mixer
This affordable mixer comes in four classic colors—black, silver, red, and white—and has a retro design that we enjoyed. The whisk and beater accessories are included as well.
We tested this mixer and basically summed up our thoughts on its performance with the phrase, “It’s fine.” The cake-making procedure was successful, and the finished product was about par for the course. A bit dull, but not terrible by any means. Like our cookie mix, lighter ingredients came together in about five minutes without fuss. Still, the device struggled with the heavier ones.
In addition, the mixer was handicapped in the same way as the 9-speed because of the elevated silver piece located in the middle of the up and down speed buttons. For the price, it’s odd that this mixer has no built-in storage.
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