stick blender vs electric beaters?

ash2008

Hi,

This is a bit of a newb question so bear with me
I want to try my hand at baking, something i dont have much experience in. I notice a lot of recipies require an electric beater to mix things.
Now I already have a stick blender - would that work just as well as the electric beaters which have those whisk type things? The blender has more of a blade on it and i saw a blender in the shop which had both a blade and a whisk attachment, so i figured that maybe they both do different things?

Just dont really want to buy something else if i already have something that will do the job.

the beer revolu

ash2008 wrote: »

Hi,

This is a bit of a newb question so bear with me
I want to try my hand at baking, something i dont have much experience in. I notice a lot of recipies require an electric beater to mix things.
Now I already have a stick blender - would that work just as well as the electric beaters which have those whisk type things? The blender has more of a blade on it and i saw a blender in the shop which had both a blade and a whisk attachment, so i figured that maybe they both do different things?

Just dont really want to buy something else if i already have something that will do the job.

A regular stick blender will not do the same job as a beater.
A whisk and alot of elbow grease will, though!;)

Minder

I agree with The Beer Revolu. I tried to use the whisk attachment on a stick blender to cream butter and sugar - a momentary disaster as it sprayed gobs of buttery sugar around the kitchen. The whisk attachment is too soft - only suitable for egg whites and double cream. The blade attachment doesn't reach the ingredients. Go with the old fashioned double whisk or get arms like Fatima Whitbread using a wooden spoon and a bowl.:D

Prenderb

Slightly off-topic, given that it wasn't the question you asked, but I have a Kenwood Chef, and it's great. Big bowl for mixing thing, and it has a dough hook, cake (K!) beater and a whisk. Also has "power take-off" points for extra attachments, such as the included liquidiser, or extra cost grinders, pasta makers, and so on. They run to about 200 quid though, but feel like they'll last forever and also have the other features.

It's a very convenient (read: lazy) option, and I've used it quite a lot. Often, the good ol' right or left arm, well greased with a commonly available lubricant (elbow grease) will do a good job too.

That said, for comparison, today I made brown soda bread with a big bowl, and my own mixerus homo sapiens, whereas the pizza dough I made using the mixer.

Sigma Force

If you're stuck for the moment elbow grease does fine on many recipes..probably all baking has been around longer than elec. mixers it just takes patience but I've no patience so got a Kenwood mixer, it doesn't come with lots of attachments just a dough hook and whisk but it's a great start.

A food processor can come in handy too.

The whisk is the best anything that requires a dough hook can be done by hand anyway but whisking by hand can take forever.

I haven't got a food processor but can pretty much make anything anyway..a rolling pin comes in handy for bashing things like biscuits and nuts etc. Although just bought a cheap hand mixer/chopper in Tesco to do for now for making tomato ketchup.

Kenwoods a good name though, so far no probs with mine.

So many things you could get, if it's just something you'll do now and then a straight forward mixer is grand but if you really get into it then a machine with all the bells and whistles will probably work out cheaper than getting individual machines.