New Mixer

I made the last payment on my personal loan in September, and I hadn't allocated the payment amount to another place in the budget when October rolled around, so DD let me buy a present with it. I have been wanting a Kitchenaid mixer for a long time, but I'm not the best saver, so it's not likely that I'll have a spare $600 lying around any time soon, so I had to buy a cheaper alternative. I bought a Sunbeam Mixmaster Compact Pro, which has dough hooks and a detachable mixer and was only $120.

It's much better than the old $20 one I bought from The Warehouse on a whim one day (don't roll your eyes - I couldn't afford a bigger one then!!!).

I broke the new one in by making a pavlova from The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander. (I've had this book for a good 5 or 6 months now, and I'm still only up to 'coriander' while reading it front-to-back).

I topped it with some whipped cream (also from the mixer) and DD and I enjoyed it a lot. It was very sweet though. DD ate quite a bit, but I only had a small slice and felt a little pavlova-d out after that. In the interests of our waistlines, we threw about 2/3 of it away.

The mixer was good, but I did find that in a recipe that calls for only 3 egg whites to be beaten the beaters just didn't reach far enough into the bowl. I had to detach the mixer until the egg whites had expanded enough for me to use the machine again. It was very disappointing, to be honest.

I haven't used it since, but I have recently purchased Nigella's How to Be a Domestic Goddess from Amazon and I'm sure I'll find plenty of things to use it with.