The Best Stand Mixers for Cakes, Cookies, and All the Carbs

Perhaps you're the go-to home baker who regularly fires up your stand mixer to make homemade treats for friends and family. Or maybe you've been tasked with creating a seven-tier wedding cake and have to hash out some serious cake batter. Either way, the beauty of KitchenAid's 7-Quart stand mixer is that it can dish out large batches without breaking a sweat (or teetering around on your counter, for that matter).

Cheesecake, brioche, recipes that required stiff peaks—anything I tasked this mixer with, it basically was like, “That's all you got?” You know, if a mixer could talk. At high speeds, the decibel level remained tolerable. I've always used planetary mixers, so the bowl-lift design took some getting used to, as well as the three-point locking mechanism. Once you get the hang of it, it's no sweat, and it helps with keeping your precious project secure. But imagine a forklift moving around pallets (again, really emphasizing heavy-duty baking here)—popping the stainless steel bowl in and out with every batch of dough felt relatively in the same ballpark.

I’ve tried a selection of Cuisinart small appliances over the years, including blenders, food processors, and grinders, and I’m always left impressed at how aesthetically pleasing and well-built the products are. In terms of timeless, well-realized design, the Precision Stand Mixer does not cut corners. With a powerful 500W motor, there’s a lot to admire here. It comes with a generous 12-speed control dial that allows you to get precise tempos for your ingredient, be it at a slow and steady 3 for when you’re adding flour to your cake mixture, or at a fast and effective 12 for whipping cream or eggs.

You get three accessories in the box, including a chef’s whisk, dough hook, and flat mixing paddle, as well as a splash guard with a pour spout that sits just above the bowl and makes sure ingredients pour in neatly. There’s a good mix of color options available here that adorn the body’s die-cast metal construction, including statement black or white and a glossy red. Similar to KitchenAid, you can buy accessories to add on, including a pasta roller and cutter, pasta extruder, meat grinder, and more, which makes it a versatile appliance to add to your kitchen repertoire. —Emily Peck

It may not look as carefully designed as some of the better-known stand mixer brands out there, but I think this Aucma appliance is excellent value and thoughtfully made. It has lots of useful design features, such as the splash guard that fixes conveniently to the tilt head instead of sitting atop the bowl. I found that having it there meant that it didn’t get in the way when I went to lift the head to check the ingredients in the bowl. With six speeds and a pulse function, it doesn’t have as many settings as, say, the Cuisinart or KitchenAid models, but the Aucma’s 1400W pure copper motor did provide impressive power for ramping up the speed in a matter of seconds.

The lever and speed controls of the Aucma Mixer are positioned near each other, which I found useful as it makes the whole thing easier to control once you’re stuck into baking. The speed dial also lights up, which adds a nice touch. There are three attachments here including a whisk, beater, and dough hook to cover all your basic baking needs. It comes with a 6.2-liter bowl and a 5-liter bowl that fit a lot of mixtures and make it useful for batch baking or catering to large households. With two handles it’s easy to lift the bowl too. Nicely done. —Emily Peck

“Fits-anywhere kitchenware” is the tagline of this 2024-launched appliance brand known for space savers like a 3.5-inch-wide toaster and cookware sets with removable handles. Like many other Bella appliances, the Hand & Stand mixer is a two-in-one: Use it like a regular hand mixer with either the included beater or dough hook attachments, or snap it into a nested, lidded bowl that rotates as you blend, turning it into a stand mixer. (The motor is 200 watts; about 75 less than a KitchenAid head-tilt model.) You add ingredients through a clear slider window on the top, which is removable for use as a bench scraper.

The hand mixer and its accessories fit in the bowls with the lid on, for stacking. I wasn’t especially impressed when using the Bella in hand mixer mode—the chunky, boxy handle eventually caused my hand to cramp when making whipped cream. And as a stand mixer, it left plenty of unmixed flour around the sides of the bowl when I made an angel food cake. Where it did excel beyond expectations, however, was in shredding meat. I often shred cooked chicken, pork, turkey, and beef with a hand mixer, and no matter how large the bowl or how careful I am, meat juice and shreds always manage to fly out. With a bowl that’s not only enclosed but that rotates, the Bella made short work of my tests with both chicken breasts and thighs.

If you shred a lot of meat, this is so efficient it’s worth buying for that task alone, but I can also see buying this for a young person just starting out who doesn’t have much space and doesn’t plan on making anything especially elaborate. In addition to the pictured Surf color, it also comes in Seaglass, Blossom, Plum, and Oatmilk. —Kat Merck

Complete with Smeg’s signature retro styling, this stand mixer comes in multiple color finishes, including an attractive Pastel Blue finish (shown). Like the majority of stand mixers I’ve tried, it comes with a wire whisk, flat beater, and dough hook that covers all the basics, and I found these easy to take on and off. Like the KitchenAid, there’s also a front port for adding optional attachments, including a pasta cutter, ice cream maker, and meat grinder. The tilt-arm model provides planetary beating and whisking action and up to 10 variable speeds. But these settings are positioned at the top of the machine (as opposed to the side), which I found convenient to access.

The design of this Smeg is well balanced with a 4.8-liter (5 quarts) bowl that sits neatly in the base, and I found setting number 7, in particular, a steady speed for combining ingredients. Its 800W direct drive motor is powerful and great for loose mixtures, but when I tried mixing dough on a fast 10-speed setting, the appliance shook a little too much for my liking. After this, I was careful not to ramp up the speed too much when mixing stiff ingredients such as hard butter and dough. I found that the flat beater did very well to mix ingredients for a fluffy vanilla sponge on setting number 8 in a matter of minutes, so I steered toward using this for cake, cake, and more cake. —Emily Peck

Described by WIRED editor Kat Merck as “what might be the most attractive stand mixer of all time," the KitchenAid Evergreen is made to be photographed. The 5-quart solid walnut bowl is a thing of beauty. (Note: The mixer body is now also available in the vintage-inspired Porcelain colorway.)

But looks aren’t everything, and if you’re going to invest in this, you’ll need to consider the practicalities. Wood isn’t as robust as stainless steel and can't be chilled. It also needs to be regularly seasoned with a food-safe wood oil and needs to be hand-washed and -dried immediately after use. But it is beautiful.

Functionality-wise, however, it is the same mixer as the classic KitchenAid Artisan (above), with easy access to the bowl via its tilt-head and 10 speed settings for flexible beating, whisking, and kneading. Whether you're happy to pay the substantial premium for a showstopping wooden bowl is up to you, but either way, you're investing in a showpiece. —Emily Peck

I am convinced that, one day, I will accidentally smash the 5-quart borosilicate glass bowl supplied with this Breville cake mixer, but it does give you a clear view of what you’re mixing without having to constantly lift the lid. I had success making both a fluffy vanilla sponge cake and stiff meringue mixture, thanks to the mixer’s fast double-sided scraper that replicates the same planetary mixing action used in commercial bakeries.

You do get a secondary 4-quart polished stainless steel mixing bowl, which is lightweight and also chillable for making batters and doughs. It's good to have the variety, but you will need ample storage space for the spares.

It comes with a flat beater, dough hook, and wire whisk, which covers most culinary mixing tasks. I also love how easy it is to switch between the 12 speeds, including those for kneading, folding, whipping, and so on. There’s also a countdown timer with an LED indicator so you don’t overbeat your ingredients, a feature that's sorely lacking on most other cake mixers. It produces great results too, although the powerful 550-watt motor is noisy, measuring 90 dB on my decibel meter app.

(This model goes under the name Sage in the UK.) —Emily Peck

This nine-speed hand mixer is a great choice for small kitchens, and in reality, even if you have a stand mixer, it's a great tool for quick-fix tasks such as mixing up a small batch of cupcakes.

As this nine-speed hand mixer purred along on its highest speed at an inoffensive 78 decibels, I could tell it has a good-quality motor. It comes in either a glossy “candle apple red” or “medallion silver” finish, and has stainless-steel Artisan Beater accessories that fit effortlessly. The beater set was ideal for making a sponge mix in a glass dish, but there’s also a pro whisk that works well for meringues, two dough hooks for bread, and a blending rod for soups and milkshakes or anything else that needs light mixing.

The mixer has a soft start feature that minimizes the amount of splatter caused when combining wet and dry products together. The ingredients combined quickly and evenly and the mixing never got too maniacal—even on speed nine, I felt in control and pleased with the results. —Emily Peck