Artisan Mini 3.5 Quart, Contour Silver

It's possible for this KitchenAid Artisan Mini to be the best mixer in its size cohort, but still leave much to be desired, i.e. good in a relative sense, but not in an absolute sense. Let's start with what I like about it. It can whip just one egg white into meringue. I was looking for a small mixer precisely for how _little_ it can make, and this checks that box for me. That said, if I run it at any speed less than top speed, it will take forever to whip to soft peaks (this is with about the same amount of sugar by weight). This is because although the whisk catches the white, only the tip of the whisk is submerged at the start. That's enough to whip it up, but the white does not benefit from being exposed to the main body of the whisk. Still better than full-size mixer where the whisk will not even touch the egg white if whipping just one white. My hands are free to do other prep, just that I have to wait for the meringue to finish. For small one-egg-white batches I went back to using handheld mixer. Maybe next time I'll try to see if there is no impact to recipe by whipping at highest speed at first then only slowing down near the end. Less than a month after purchasing it, the mixer starts making a clacking noise when it starts up. It does go away after a few seconds, but it is disconcerting. Knock off one star. And, after taking the whisk off and on a few times in the first week of use, a bit of metal came off. It looks like one of the holes drilled into the top part of the whisk to create the fitting with the motor was not completely deburred at the factory, and the bur finally came off. I recognize what a bur looks like from previous experience in a machine shop. I was not pleased but also recognize each hole has only one bur and that was it, I need not worry about another bur from that same hole. Still, crappy machining = minus another star. For how much these things cost, I expect better. I do like how quickly the whisk whips butter using the whisk. Even as little as one stick. It only requires one scrape down to reincorporate the initial layer of butter that gets flung to the side. I like the paddle attachment with the scraper -- it mixes everything from the side. It only requires one scrape _up_ to incorporate ingredients from the bottom. I noticed other comments remarking lack of cross bars or posts across the paddle (like in the full-size mixer) leaves the center unmixed. What I found is that a sufficiently viscous mixture will mix, and ironically, that a slower mixing speed with the paddle improves the ability of the outer part of the mixture to "catch" the middle. If you need to mix a runnier mixture, consider using the whisk attachment, then change to a paddle later if needed. (Using both would still be necessary even on a full-size mixer for certain applications like frostings, where the paddle is needed to smooth out the larger air bubbles introduced by the whisk.)