My KitchenAid stand mixer has always been my favourite appliance. I upgraded to the KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer a few years ago and I love it, but over the past year I’ve found myself doubling batches of cookie dough and bread dough so the 5-quart bowl isn’t big enough. Now that I’ve tested out the KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer, I know what my next upgrade is going to be. Not only is this stand mixer a lot bigger than my 5 quart mixer, but it’s ultra-quiet, has a new fold speed that slowly starts the mixer to fold in ingredients, and comes in so many great new colours.
I also tried making my own pasta with the KitchenAid pasta roller and cutter attachments, and it’s so easy I can’t imagine going back to storebought. Here’s a look at my experience using the bowl-lift mixer and pasta attachments.
KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer features
Unlike the traditional tilt head of smaller KitchenAid mixers, the KitchenAid Professional uses a lift system for the 7-quart bowl (there is also a 5.5 Qt. version available). You attach the bowl to the mixer and a handle lifts it up so the beater, whisk, or dough hook fits in the bottom of the bowl.
- 11-speed stand mixer including 1/2 speed for folding ingredients
- 500 watts of power to take on big batches of dough
- 6.62-litre (7-quart) brushed stainless steel bowl
- 2x the power in the bowl than the tilt-head stand mixer
- Double flex edge beater that scrapes the sides of the bowl with two flexible edges
- Includes coated double flex-edge beater, coated beater, wire whisk, dough hook, and pouring shield
Available in a variety of colours
The KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer is available in 12 colours—Blue Velvet, Empire Red, White, Milkshake, Cast Iron Black, Matte Dried Rose, Pistachio, Mineral Water Blue, Medallion Silver, Feather Pink, and Contour Silver.
I love the brushed metallic finish on these mixers and I’m a huge fan of the new colours. There is such a variety including traditional fire engine red or the beautiful soft Blue Velvet. I also like the new design of the beaters and dough hook. They are double-coated and have a grey finish, and I think they are a great upgrade on the standard white.
KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer vs. KitchenAid tilt-head mixer
If you’re like me and you’re a longtime owner of KitchenAid stand mixers, you may be wondering what the most important differences are between the new KitchenAid Professional and KitchenAid Artisan stand mixers. The most notable difference between the two is that the KitchenAid Professional uses a bowl-lift system that lifts the bowl up to the beaters. The tilt-head mixers lock the bowl onto the base and the head tilts down into the bowl. After using it for a while I think bowl-lift is a great feature for a stand mixer that can hold as much as the KitchenAid Professional can. Double batches can be pretty heavy, so it’s nice to just lock the bowl on and lift it up.
The bowl-lift design also gives the mixer more room to mix, and that helps prevent dough from wrapping its way around the base where you attach the beater, whisk, or dough hook. I’ve found this usually happens when I’m mixing bread dough in my KitchenAid Artisan 5 quart bowl. The dough will work its way up the beater and wrap its way around the connector. It can be a bit hard to clean, so I love how that’s no longer an issue with the 7 quart bowl.
Using the KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer
11 speeds and ultra-quiet motor
I had a friend who owned the first generation KitchenAid Professional stand mixer and her one issue with it was how loud the motor was. Understandably, a 500 watt motor will be a little louder than the standard 350 watt motor on tilt-head mixers as it’s quite a bit more powerful. I’m happy to say that, even though the new KitchenAid Professional runs a bigger motor, it’s also very quiet. It’s no louder than my KitchenAid Artisan, and I think it might actually be a bit quieter.
With a motor this powerful, this mixer can handle massive batches of dough. KitchenAid has said the 6.62-litre (7-quart) bowl has 40% more capacity than tilt-head mixers and can take on 8.5 lbs of bread dough or mash 7.5 lbs of potatoes at one time. I made a double batch of bread dough and still had room to spare. I couldn’t believe the space the mixing bowl had, and the motor had no trouble blasting through thick dough.
This stand mixer has 11 distinct speeds. 10 is the most powerful speed, and KitchenAid has added a 1/2 speed for slow start up. Half speed is for folding, so you can use it for ingredients like egg whites. I like to use it when I add everything to the bowl at once because the slow start prevents flour from flying out of a full bowl. With my own mixer I’ll turn the power on to level 1 and have flour everywhere, even with the pour shield on. With the slow start on the KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift mixer, everything stays in the bowl where it belongs.
Flex edge beater and pour shield
I’m a huge fan of the KitchenAid pour shield. I’ve used it on my own mixer and it does help reduce splatter, but it works even better on the KitchenAid Professional stand mixer. I could turn the mixer on with a full bowl of flour and have no issue with flying flour or splatter at all. I also think the included double flex edge beater helps in that regard. It scrapes the sides of the bowl so nothing is left unmixed, and it mixes everything up much faster than the standard beater.
Features of KitchenAid stand mixer pasta attachments
While testing out the KitchenAid Professional I also tested out the KitchenAid Pasta Roller and Cutter attachments. Just add the attachment to your stand mixer and you can easily whip up tons of fresh pasta.
- Includes a pasta roller, a fettuccine cutter, and a spaghetti cutter
- Easily attaches to your KitchenAid stand mixer hub
- All-metal housing will stand up to years of use
Testing KitchenAid pasta roller and cutter attachments
One of my favourite things about having a KitchenAid stand mixer is how many great attachments you can fit onto the hub. You just unscrew the small cap on the front of the mixer and add one of the many different attachments.
The KitchenAid pasta attachment set comes with a pasta roller, spaghetti cutter, and fettuccini cutter. They are all made of durable stainless steel and they easily attach to the front of the stand mixer. I made a batch of pasta dough and popped it on the pasta roller. It has a dial you can adjust for thickness, but to make it thin enough to feed through I shaped the dough into a ball and pressed it down into a disk. The disk was still pretty thick when I first started to drop it through the pasta roller, but the roller grabbed onto the dough and pulled it through.
The pasta roller had absolutely no problem at all with thicker dough, and I tested out the different thickness levels by pulling the dough through over and over again. I found if you started too thin the dough would tear a bit, so I recommend you push the dough through on level 2 a few times before trying a thinner level. Level 8 is the thinnest, and it’s the best level for angel hair pasta. Level 4 is great for spaghetti.
Make your own spaghetti or fettuccini
Once you’ve pressed your dough and it’s as thin as you’d like it, you can decide how you’d like to use it. I have a lasagna pan that’s 9 x 11 so I cut some pasta sheets and let them dry as lasagna noodles. I also used the spaghetti and fettuccini attachments. The thin dough is fed through the attachment and strings of spaghetti or fettuccini are pushed out. It’s so fun to make pasta like this, and a single batch of dough gave me so much pasta I was looking all over my kitchen for places to hang it or lay it down. Christine, editor of Home & Lifestyle here at the blog, recommended using a pasta drying rack to dry all of the pasta you whip up with this attachment. I am definitely going to pick one up so I can make big batches and let them dry.
There are so many great KitchenAid stand mixer attachments including ice cream makers, meat grinders, and ice shavers. I’d love to try them all, and the Pasta Roller & Cutter is definitely one I’ll be adding to my kitchen. It’s so fun to use, and I think the Pasta Roller would be a great tool to use to thin out my pizza dough too.
Should you choose the KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer?
For me, there are quite a few reasons to love the KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer. It has a quiet, powerful motor, a much bigger bowl, and the flex edge beater does a great job of scraping the sides of the bowl so you don’t need to stop and use a scraper. The pour shield is also a great addition to the mixer as it prevents splatter when you’re mixing at high speeds. The 1/2 speed soft start-up prevents flour from flying everywhere and lets me use the mixer for tasks like folding eggs or light stirring.
I love all of the attachments you can add to KitchenAid stand mixers, and the Pasta Roller & Cutter is definitely my top choice. It takes a few simple ingredients and turns them into delicious pasta. Just a word of warning—having this attachment will ruin you for store bought pasta. Fresh pasta is so good I can’t imagine buying grocery store pasta anymore.
The KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer is available in 12 colours. You can choose the perfect shade for your kitchen right now at Best Buy.
Table of Contents
- KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer features
- KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer vs. KitchenAid tilt-head mixer
- Using the KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer
- Features of KitchenAid stand mixer pasta attachments
- Testing KitchenAid pasta roller and cutter attachments
- Should you choose the KitchenAid Professional bowl-lift stand mixer?
The pasta attachments would be ideal for us. My children are going through a phase in which they just love pasta and it would be great to make home made pasta for them.
M pick that I would use most is the pasta roller. From there i would make spaghetti noodles. We love fresh spaghetti .
The spaghetti cutter would be great for making my kids favourite spaghetti with meat sauce.
The pasta attachment would be the most exciting to try out!
The dough hook would be great for me, as I really want to experiment making bread at home.
The ice cream attachment would be perfect for us because we all love homemade ice cream!
Pasta Roller & Cutter Stand Mixer Attachment would be most useful for my family to make delicious home made dinners with fresh ingredients.
love the Ice cream attachment for making ice cream in hot weather
Flex edge beater would make baking faster
i think the Sausage stuffer. love making my own sausages
for me it’s the ice cream attachement. easy to make ice cream!
We love the Shave Ice Attachment snow cones are my favourite
Sausage stuffer because i make a lot of homemade ones in the summer
Ice cream attachment would be amazing for the summer time
I would likely find the dough hook most useful, for family pizza nights at home 🙂 Also I would use the coated beater & wire whisk a lot and the pasta attachments would be fantastic!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the pasta attachment , we love pasta and to be able to make our own would be so great
The pasta attachment would be great to make home made noodles and perhaps create unique pasta dishes to share with my family.
I think I would use the pasta roller the most. From there i would make spaghetti noodles. We love fresh spaghetti .
I think the sausage stuffer would be very useful. we do make our own sausages but this would make life a whole lot easier for us
I would love to try the icecream maker. We love icecream here and I think it would be such a fun family making experience. I think we’d use it a lot.
The pasta attachment would be a hit in my home! We love pasta dishes and it’s fun to make our own pasta
The KitchenAid stand mixer attachment I think would be most useful for my family is the Pasta Roller & Cutter, because we love pasta and being able to make our own fresh pasta would be great.
The pasta roller would be amazing
Pasta attachment – saving money & eating delicious food!
The food processor attachment would be very useful for cooking and for baking. Definitely on the needs list.
The ice cream maker attachment would be my favourite KitchenAid stand mixer attachment since we love to eat ice cream at my house!
Shelley’s review has convinced me KitchenAid’s Pasta Roller & Cutter attachment would be the most useful KitchenAid attachment for our family. Fresh, homemade pasta would elevate our simple pasta dishes to culinary experiences. I can taste it now… freshly made pesto fettuccine, spinach liguine, tomato angel hair pasta… the only limit would be my imagination – not my budget!
Hands down the fettuccine cutter would be my favourite attachment to use!
The roller and cutter are a feature my family would use a ton. My husband very much hints at me making fresh pasta as that is something I often take the short cut on. I do think that the flavour, taste and healthiness of fresh pasta would be something I would lean towards making more if I had an easier way of making it.
I would use the pasta roller the most. From there i would make spaghetti noodles. We love fresh spaghetti .
Comprehensive information, thanks! I would definitely be using the dough hook a lot as I make all our bread. I would just love to have one of these.
My family would love the pasta roller and cutter attachment. I had an older hand roller one that my children used for play dough when they were younger but now they would love the pasta maker.
I really like the Flex edge beater as it makes mixing so much easier!
I think the sausage stuffer would be awesome. if we are lucky in the fall we might end up with a moose or some moose meat gifted to us and we all love homemade sausage!!
pasta attachments is the good idea, and I love to make my own pasta !
Oh my gosh pasta attachment! I’ve been making pasta by hand for years, it takes me forever to make each little shape. I’ve tried all kinds and even hand cut long noodles. This would be a dream!
Sold me on the pasta attachments. Now I just need to find them at the right price!
I absolutely need need need this pasta attachment to up my pasta game!
An Ice Cream Maker attachment would probably be the most used for our family. very fun
My vote would be for the ice-cream maker attachment. It would be used constantly in our house.
Sausage stuffer would be most useful so we could make homemade sausages to BBQ in the summer.
pasta cutter and pasta roller would be extremely useful. nothing comes close to freshly made pasta.
The dough hook attachment would come in handy trying to recreate my mom’s cinnamon raisin bread.
The ice-cream maker attachment would probably get a lot of use in our family. We love ice-cream.
This is a no brainer. Ice cream attachment
The ice cream maker attachment would be the most useful because we could make a fresh batch of healthier ice cream on demand with our choice of flavouring such as fresh fruits.
I’d love to try the ice cream maker or the fresh pasta roller.
I think I would use the pasta roller the most. From there i would make spaghetti noodles. We love fresh spaghetti .
The Food Processor attachment would be handy for us. It would eliminate the need for a stand-alone food processor.
ice cream maker – we love ice cream
Great review, I was already sold on this equipment for my baking needs but with the pasta cutter and pasta roller attachment it would become even more useful as I have always wanted to make my own pasta!!!
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