There’s something special about a homemade bake, whether given as a gift or simply the focus for a relaxing afternoon. A stand mixer makes life even easier when it comes to crafting your favourite cakes, bakes and pastries.

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Hand-beating, whisking and kneading can be laborious tasks, but the best stand mixers do the hard work for you, and are considerably faster. There are a whole host of stand mixers on the market, from simply designed but powerful models intended to complete everyday tasks with ease, to high-tech pieces of kit with useful additions.

Stand mixers can vary in price, so choosing the right one for you can be a bit of a minefield. As well as the cost, it's important to consider what you'll be using your stand mixer for and which features are important to you. Important elements to consider include aesthetics, power and capacity as well as the number of accessories available for the mixer.

We’ve detailed all the things you should consider before buying a stand mixer as well as sharing our tried-and-tested top picks for a broad spectrum of home cooks, from novice to experienced bakers.

For baking inspiration, head over to our easy baking recipes collection. On our recipes page you’ll find all manner of delicious bakes, from easy sweet traybakes and easy cakes to the best cheesecake recipes, easy bread recipes and much more. Just getting into baking? Our best tart tins, best brownie tins and 24 best baking tips are a must-read and, for your favourite baker (or even yourself), our best baking gifts guide is full of ideas.

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Best stand mixers at a glance

  • Best smart stand mixer: Kenwood Titanium Chef Patissier XL, £689
  • Best stand mixer for bakers: Ankarsrum Assistent Original food mixer, £675
  • Best mid-range Kenwood stand mixer: Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker XL, £464.85
  • Best hybrid stand mixer and food processor: Bosch CreationLine MUM5XW10, £229.99
  • Best powerful stand mixer: ProCook stand mixer, £219
  • Best large capacity stand mixer: KitchenAid 5.6L Bowl-Lift Artisan, £558.95
  • Best stand mixer for stylish kitchens: KitchenAid Artisan 125, £469
  • Best stand mixer for last-minute bakes: Breville HeatSoft VFM027, £190.61
  • Best stand mixer for sweet bakes: Sage the Bakery Boss, £419.95
  • Best entry-level Kenwood stand mixer: Kenwood kMix, £229
  • Most user-friendly stand mixer: Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker, £464.85
  • Best colourful stand mixer: Smeg stand mixer SMF03, £368.79
  • Best affordable stand mixer: Cuisinart Precision stand mixer, £99

Best stand mixers to buy in 2024

Kenwood Titanium Chef Patissier XL

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Best smart stand mixer

Star rating: 5/5

Wattage: 1400W

Kenwood is one of the biggest names in the world of stand mixers and the Chef Patissier XL is its most advanced model.

This stand mixer is packed to the rafters with useful additions. The Patissier XL comes with two bowls (5L and 7L), integrated scales, an EasyWarm bowl and a touchscreen control panel with presets for a range of key baking dishes.

This model methodically and skilfully worked through all tests, producing high-quality and, most importantly, delicious results.

Don’t be intimidated by all the high-tech features, the Patissier XL is simply a joy to use. But it's worth bearing in mind that these extra features come at a high cost, so this model is best suited to those who actually need them.

Read the full Kenwood Titanium Chef Patissier XL review

Ankarsrum Assistent Original Food Mixer

Ankarsrum Assistent 001

Best stand mixer for bakers

Star rating: 5/5

Wattage: 1500W

This stand mixer stole our hearts. It stands out on this list for shunning the traditional stand mixer silhouette. But the differences don’t stop there. Rather than featuring a planetary mixing mechanism, the bowl rotates on the Ankarsrum.

Watching the Ankarsrum work is mesmerising, particularly when it comes to bread. It kneads dough with delicacy and respect, and, once baked, our cardamom buns were the most professional-quality of all the buns produced by the models on this list. Cake mixes will need to be helped a little, as the beaters alone weren’t able to fully incorporate all the ingredients.

But the Ankarsrum Assistent is well worth the investment and is clearly built to last. A must-have for bread bakers.

Read the full Ankarsrum Assistent Original Food Mixer review

Available from:

Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker XL

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Best mid-range Kenwood stand mixer

Star rating: 5/5

Wattage: 1200W

If you’re enchanted by the additions on the Titanium Chef Patissier XL but have no real need for bowl warming or a touchscreen control panel, the Chef Baker XL is a fabulous alternative. It features the same in-built scales and comes with two bowls, ideal for batch baking.

Design-wise, the Chef range is very similar and therefore simple to use. The mixer accelerates at a gentle and considered pace, reaching high speeds thanks to the powerful 1,400-watt motor. The Chef Baker XL helped us achieve fantastic results across all cake making, whisking and dough kneading tasks, and comes at a brilliant price.

Read the full Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker XL review

Available from:
Amazon (£689)
Lakeland (£799.99)

Bosch CreationLine MUM5XW10

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Best hybrid stand mixer and food processor

Star rating: 5/5

Wattage: 1000W

This unique offering from Bosch is a hybrid machine: a two-in-one stand mixer and food processor. Included are the three standard stand mixer attachments, as well as grating and slicing discs. This model sits landscape on the counter and has a useful digital display.

In use the attachments rotate rhythmically around the bowl gathering up every ingredient. The cake and meringue tests were a real success but we found the plastic dough hook struggled to stand up to our weighty enriched dough. With lots of useful and well considered extras, the Bosch CreationLine machine offers real bang for your buck.

Read the full Bosch CreationLine MUM5X10 review

ProCook stand mixer

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ProCook stand mixer

Best powerful stand mixer

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 1800W

Straight out of the box this stand mixer is sleek and impressive. It's deceptively lightweight, but the motor packs some serious power with 1800 wattage, one of the highest we've seen. Strong suction feet on the base means that despite the lack of weightiness the machine never jumps around on the counter, feeling very secure.

Although pretty noisy, we were impressed by this machine on test. It comes with a beater, balloon whisk and dough hook as well as a splash shield. There are fewer speeds than on many other models — six, plus a pulse function. The dough for our buns came together easily and developed a nice gluten structure. We used the beater for our cake batter and the butter and sugar creamed together beautifully although we did have to scrape down the sides a couple of times when adding the eggs.

This is an impressive piece of kit that would be a welcome addition to any baker's kitchen — and with a far more affordable price tag than many of its competitors.

KitchenAid 5.6L Bowl-Lift Artisan

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KitchenAid Bowl-Lift Artisan 5KSM60 with badge

Best large capacity stand mixer

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 375W

KitchenAid broadly have two designs when it comes to stand mixers. The first is likely the best known which is the tilt-head model often seen on cookery shows like The Great British Bake Off. This model is in the second design style — the bowl lift mixer. These have bowls which lift directly onto arms extending from the side of the mixer, which can then be lifted to meet the attachment.

If you're regularly catering for a crowd, a bowl-lift mixer offers a wide range of versatility thanks to its large capacity, and this new model comes with a 5.6L bowl. With 11 speeds to choose from, this is a powerful machine that easily handled all textures of mixture on test from light cake batter to thick enriched dough.

The design does take some getting used to, especially if you're used to the tilt-head models. We found inserting and removing the bowl from the pins took a certain knack as there's a clip at the back of the bowl to hold it in place.

KitchenAid Artisan

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Best stand mixer for stylish kitchens

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 300W

The KitchenAid Artisan is the stand mixer that crops up on all the best cooking shows. It’s sturdy, reliable, comes with a wealth of attachments and, best of all, available in a whole host of exciting, daring and interesting colours. There are three different types of Artisan model to choose from – the differences are detailed in our full review.

The Artisan scored highly for its simple and intuitive controls, and easy to fit attachments. Its low wattage meant dough was a little slow to bring together but it excelled on the cake and meringue making tests. Additional features such as the useful handle on the bowl and range of KitchenAid accessories available make the KitchenAid Artisan a reliable and versatile choice.

Read the full KitchenAid Artisan review and check out our guide to the best KitchenAid deals.

Breville HeatSoft stand mixer

Breville HeatSoft stand mixer

Best stand mixer for last-minute bakes

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 1000W

Featuring a cream or white body and mirrored accents, this Breville stand mixer is sure to suit any kitchen.

Unique to this model is the HeatSoft feature. Choose from ‘soften’ and ‘melt’, and the stand mixer will shoot warm or hot air directly into the bowl; a setting ideal for quickly softening butter or melting chocolate.

But even without this nifty feature, the Breville excelled. Its sturdy attachments brought our brioche dough, cake mix and meringue together quickly and efficiently. Once baked, our test recipes were just the texture we were looking for.

The beater attachment was a particular triumph, as it does a brilliant job of scraping down the sides of the bowl as it mixes. We did have to jump in to lift the mix that sat underneath the beater, though.

This stand mixer has a lot of the features of some of the high-tech models on this list: attractive design, sturdy attachments and unique additions, making it a worthwhile investment for regular home bakers.

Available from:
Amazon (£190.61)

Sage the Bakery Boss

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Best stand mixer for sweet bakes

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 1200W

Known for its sleek and impressive-looking appliances, Sage has a strong reputation when it comes to performance-focussed pieces of kit. A wealth of useful attachments and accessories are included with the Bakery Boss, highlights being the extra bowl and the scraper beater.

There are also some nifty additions that you don’t find on most stand mixers, including a bowl light and the 12-speed guide, which lets you know the best speed to use for a range of tasks. The Bakery Boss excelled on our meringue and cake making tests. The dough for our cardamom buns became knotted around the dough hook a few times and the necks of each of the attachment are short, meaning we got batter and meringue over our hands.

Read the full Sage the Bakery Boss review

Available from:
Sage (£419.95)

Kenwood kMix

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Best entry-level Kenwood stand mixer

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 1000W

If you’ve been admiring Kenwood stand mixers for a while but feel the Chef range is either too technical for your needs or slightly more money than you’re happy to spend, the Kenwood kMix provides all the impressive power and high-quality attachments of its Chef counterparts.

Design-wise, it’s more fun looking than the slightly serious Chef range, and is available in a range of fun colours. The 1,000-watt motor powered through all our bakes with ease, producing a light and fluffy cake, and delicate meringue. The dough did get wrapped around the dough hook, which was a shame. But the kMix packs a punch and gets the basics done well.

Read the full Kenwood kMix review

Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker

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Most user-friendly stand mixer

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 1200W

The Chef Baker is Kenwood's entry-level model to the Chef range. It’s more pared back than the Chef Baker XL and the Chef Patissier XL in this list but no less impressive, featuring a 5L mixing bowl and the same gentle speed dial. This stand mixer made light work of all three tests, producing exactly the results we were looking for.

Neat and compact, the Chef Baker is an attractive option that doesn’t take up too much space on the kitchen counter. It also features Kenwood’s interchangeable PopTops (removable coloured panels) that bring a pop of colour to the mixer. It’s not the quietest model and we noticed that the tilt head jolted a little when mixing the dough, but otherwise it’s reasonably priced and brilliant at everyday baking tasks.

Read the full Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker review

Cuisinart Precision stand mixer

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Best affordable stand mixer

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 500W

Like the KitchenAid above, this Cuisinart model is only available in black and white. This wholly uncomplicated machine is simple and intuitive to put together. The attachments are reassuringly weighty and very well built.

This model did a brilliant job on our cake making and whisking tests but the low wattage meant that it struggled somewhat when kneading bread dough. We found the low speed settings a welcome addition, particularly when starting to mix doughs – the speeds are gentle and controlled.

Simple to use, well designed and budget-friendly, the Cuisinart Precision stand mixer is a high-quality, affordable option.

Read the full Cuisinart Precision stand mixer review

Available from:
Amazon (£99)
Very (£315)

Smeg stand mixer SMF03

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Best colourful stand mixer

Star rating: 4/5

Wattage: 800W

This is Smeg’s most up-to-date stand mixer. It comes in an attractive array of colours suitable for both muted and maximalist kitchens. Included with this model are all the attachments you’ll need to get started, as well as an unusual anchor-shaped scraper beater attachment.

This model performed well on the cake-making test, though the scraper beater didn’t work as we expected, so we opted for the traditional beater paddle instead, which worked considerably better. We found the SMF03 lacked oomph and as a result our meringue and dough tests took a long time to complete. Best suited for the design-conscious cake baker.

Read the full Smeg stand mixer SMF03 review

Available from:
Amazon (£368.79)
Fenwick (£499)
Selfridges (£500)

Other stand mixers tried and tested

How we tested stand mixers

The stand mixers featured in this review were tested in controlled conditions using a standardised testing criteria. We picked three classic olive recipes to test three key stand mixer tasks and their attachments. To put the beater to the test, we made olive’s easy chocolate cake recipe. For the dough hook, we made cardamom custard buns (skolebrød) and to test the balloon whisk, we whipped up a basic pavlova. All stand mixers were scored against the following criteria:

  • Performance: the texture of the cake, bread and meringue were assessed before and after baking. We looked for fully incorporated ingredients, consistent bakes and bakes that were light, open and airy in texture.
  • Ease of use: all models were scored for the ease and intuitiveness of their assembly. We looked for smooth controls and gentle acceleration – no aggressive jolting! Everything from the ease of fitting the attachments, heft of the tilt head and any features that added to the user experience, were assessed.
  • Value for money: the models on this list range in price massively, so performance, versatility and included features were all considered. These appliances are a costly investment for some, so the price must be right.
  • Quality of materials: stand mixers should be built to last, and that goes for their attachments, too. We looked for well built, sturdy engineering.
  • Design and aesthetic: with many of the models on this list weighing in at around 10kg, you really don’t want to be moving your stand mixer every time you want to use it. We looked for attractive mixers with a high-quality finish. Being available in a range of colours or the option for customisable elements scored mixers extra points.
  • Sustainability: Polystyrene packaging and plastic bags are a big no in our eyes. We look out for recyclable packaging, long warranties and

To find out more about how testing appliances is done at olive, head over to our how we test page.

What can a stand mixer be used for?

The original stand mixers were designed simply to assist as egg beaters. But through constant innovation and various redesigns most modern stand mixers now come with three attachments for beating, whisking and kneading. There are countless sweet and savoury dishes to create using any of these attachments.

Use the beater to make cakes, pastry, cookies, and icing - it can even be used to mash potatoes. The balloon whisk is ideal for aerating egg whites for meringue, whipping cream and making whisked sponges such as genoise. The dough hook can be used for all manner of bread doughs – it tackles high hydration pizza dough, classic bread doughs, enriched doughs and pasta, plus much more.

Many stand mixer brands also offer a range of additional attachments to ensure you get the most out of your mixer. These can include food processor attachments, pasta and cookie presses, sausage stuffers, vegetable cutters and more.

What to look out for when choosing a stand mixer

  • Design: both aesthetics and the added design features of a stand mixer should factor into your decision making. If you’re planning on keeping your stand mixer on the kitchen counter, mixers that are available in a range of colours are a great opportunity to either add a pop of colour to your space or to tie it all together.
  • Size: stand mixers range in size from mini models to hulking XL machines. Consider the space you have in the kitchen, not forgetting the height. Don’t forget, there will need to be a good amount of clearance space above the mixer for when the tilt head is fully extended.
  • Capacity: familiarise yourself with the bowl capacity of the mixer you’re interested in – 3-4 litres is great for smaller bakes, 4-6 litres is the most common size, making it great for all bakes, whilst 6 litres+ is ideal for large bakes and batch cooking. Some stand mixers come with two bowl sizes, which is also useful.
  • Weight: stand mixers need to be a little weighty to ensure they stay anchored to the worksurface when kneading heavy doughs or mixing at full speed. If you’re unable to keep your stand mixer on the kitchen counter, consider getting a lighter model but don’t go so light that it is a flimsy construction.
  • Versatility: most stand mixers come with attachments for beating, whisking and kneading as standard. But many brands offer additional attachments for a variety of tasks, such as pasta making, sausage making, ice cream making and much more. If you’re looking to make the most of your new stand mixer, the option for additional bits of kit is a big plus. Some stand mixers have additional in-built features, too: do you need in-built scales, a timer or even bowl-warming technologies?
  • Price: consider how much money you have to spend on a new stand mixer. They can range in price from around £200 up to £800. Weigh up the additions to work out whether they’re worth it for you, for the price.

Top tip: if your stand mixer doesn’t come with a storage bag for the attachments, line the bowl with a clean tea towel and store the attachments inside. This keeps all the attachments together and the tea towel stops them from scratching the bowl.

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Authors

Lydia AndersonProduct Testing Lead

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