Ankarsrum Assistent Original

I've been making more pizza and bread dough lately and noticed my KitchenAid struggling a bit to knead it. When I was younger I made my grandmother's pizza dough by hand all the time, but once I moved out of my parent's house and no longer made a big batch using my grandmother's recipe, I started trying other smaller recipes that said to use a stand mixer to mix the dough. I had never even thought of that as an option before, but that is how I mix my dough now. I am usually only making pizza for my small family of 4, but occasionally make pizza for more people and have to make more than one batch of dough at a time in my KitchenAid. Most recently, I made 16 pizzas (4 recipes of Ooni pizza dough) on the 4th of July. It took me an hour, as it took about 15 minutes per batch to make and knead the dough in the mixer. I love my KitchenAid mixers and don't want to burn out the motor in either of them, so I started looking into what might be a better option. Of course, spiral mixers are the most obvious answer as the best mixer for pizza dough, but they are also huge, very heavy, and very expensive. I don't have a place to store one permanently, or want to spend that kind of money on a mixer that can really only do one thing (even if it does that one thing very well). It is overkill for my needs.

The other mixer that I kept coming across is called the Ankarsrum Assistent Original (Ankarsrum Original Kitchen Machine - formerly known as Verona, Magic Mill, Electrolux Assistent, DLX). It's a mixer that has been made in Sweden since 1940 and is very popular among bread bakers. You can read a little about the history of it here and here. Other than a few name changes over the years, little has changed from the original design. Unlike the KitchenAids, the motor is in the bottom of the mixer rather than overhead, and the bowl rotates. This leaves the bowl widely accessible from the top to easily add ingredients in and see the progress of the mixed batter or dough, which is very nice. It weighs less and since it's not top-heavy, it is easier to move. It comes with a 7-liter (7.4 quarts) stainless steel bowl, which is larger than both of my KitchenAids (I have a 6-quart bowl lift and a 5-quart tilt head). It also comes with a 7-year warranty, which is almost unheard of these days!

The mixer comes in 13 different colors (not as many options as KitchenAid offers, but still a good variety to choose from). I chose the color Royal Blue which has a matte finish. The only other blue option is Ocean Blue, but it has a very sparkly look to it which I don't like.

Royal Blue

The biggest complaint I've heard about this mixer is that there is a big learning curve. I have used KitchenAid mixers my whole life, so I imagined there would be a slight learning curve when moving to a new mixer that is this different, but I didn't think it would be impossible to use. I'm guessing that most people who have issues with this mixer either are not using it correctly, don't bake much to begin with, or don't have much patience. I've watched lots of videos and tutorials and it doesn't seem that difficult to use, but it is definitely very different from how the KitchenAid works. There are also some helpful tips on kneading dough. From what I've read, you have to always start with your liquids first in the mixer bowl, and salt should be added last (salt and yeast should not be added together). Oftentimes, you don't need as much flour as you would normally use when using a different mixer, so it's recommended not to mix other dry ingredients in the same bowl as your flour in case you don't use all of the flour.

The attachments are very different from the KitchenAid ones, so you have to learn how to use them. There is a dough roller and dough knife that can do every task. In fact, this is all the mixer came with when it was first sold, although they were made out of wood back then instead of plastic like they are now. Now they also include a dough hook, which was a later addition to this mixer once they started selling it in the USA. A lot of people don't seem to like or use their dough hook. The mixer also comes with a smaller plastic bowl, balloon whisks and cookie whisks that have plastic gears and look rather flimsy compared to the KitchenAid ones. You can purchase a stainless steel bowl that is the same size to use with the whisks, if you prefer to not use a plastic bowl. You also cannot use cold butter with the whisks because they and the plastic gears could break - you have to either use room temperature butter or cold butter that has been grated (not cut into chunks, for things like biscuits and pie dough). I plan to keep both of my KitchenAid mixers and continue using them for cookie dough, cakes, frosting, whipped cream, etc. so the smaller bowl and whisks don't matter as much to me, but I will probably try them out at some point. Most people say they use the roller and scraper for everything but whipping egg whites and whipped cream. One important thing to note when using either of the whisks is that they work faster than other mixers because there are two of them, so you should pay extra close attention to things that can easily get over whipped or over mixed. Another nice feature of this mixer is that the plug is removable from the machine.

7-liter stainless steel bowl with cover

Baking accessories for stainless steel bowl - dough roller, dough knife and spatula (included with mixer)

Dough hook for stainless steel bowl (included with the mixer)

Double beater set with 3.5-liter bowl (included with mixer)

Beater bowl in stainless steel (sold separately)

Another factor I considered that has annoyed me about my KitchenAids as I've gotten older is the sound of the mixer running. I developed Tinnitus (ringing in my ears) a few years ago, and certain sounds like a mixer running for 8-10 minutes (or much longer if making pasta!) make it worse. I read that the Ankarsrum is a lot quieter, which intrigued me, especially since I run my mixer the longest when mixing bread and pizza dough. Since the KitchenAid tends to "walk" (move on the countertop) as I'm making dough in it, I have to stay by the mixer which means that sound is right in my ear the entire time the dough is mixing. The Ankarsrum doesn't have that issue and won't move around, so you can go do other things while it is mixing or kneading dough. It also comes with a timer and will turn itself off once the timer runs out, which is pretty great!

Speaking of pasta, the Ankarsrum has a lot of optional accessories you can buy for it, including a pasta roller and a few different pasta cutters. It does not have nearly as many accessories as KitchenAid, but there are some interesting ones. Unlike the KitchenAid where you attach these to the top of the mixer, on the Ankarsrum, you turn the mixer on the side and attach them. It looks pretty odd in my opinion, but I've read that the attachments work very well. I'm not sure that I would buy any of them, as I plan to use this primarily for mixing bread and pizza dough, but the pasta roller does intrigue me since this mixer is not as loud as the KitchenAid. You can also easily buy spare or replacement parts.

Pasta Roller Attachment

Now, for the price. This mixer is not cheap. It is considerably less than a spiral mixer though. I have also heard of people who have owned this mixer for 20 or 30+ years and it is still like new. The motors don't burn out and they don't break the way KitchenAids do. These mixers also sell for the same price everywhere and seem to never go on sale. Luckily I found a company named The Bread Beckers that gives a 10% military discount and does not charge tax, so that is where I ordered mine from. I also earned $22.47 in "Bread Bucks" to use on a future order since I made an account on their website. The only other option I found to get one of these for a lower price (other than buying a used one, in which case there would be no warranty), is to buy a factory serviced machine, which is $124 less than a new one and comes with a 5-year warranty rather than a 7-year warranty.

I ordered this on July 9th and it arrived via UPS on July 12th. It was packaged very well (in a box inside a box inside a box - my kids were laughing at me opening 3 boxes before we got to the actual mixer). I'm happy with the pretty blue color I chose and the matte finish will help keep things looking clean. I washed everything right away so we could use it the next day. While washing the bowl I realized that one downside to the big stainless steel bowl that rotates is there is no handle on it, and I will definitely miss not having a handle because it really helps. On the other hand, using a bowl with a flat bottom will be really nice. Everything seems well-made and the included hardcover recipe book is a nice touch. Since this mixer is so different from anything I've ever used before, I read through the manuals and the tips in them, looked through the recipes and registered my mixer.

I initially thought this mixer was ugly, but it has grown on me, mostly because I have come to the sad realization that the KitchenAids are really not meant for making bread.

The day after I received this mixer I made a double recipe of Giada's pizza dough in it (using the large stainless steel bowl, roller and dough knife). The dough came out great and the pizza was delicious! I had never made this recipe in anything other than my KitchenAid before. I usually only make a double recipe but will be able to easily fit at least 4 recipes of this dough in this mixer!

I didn't intend to use this for baking other things like cookies and cakes, but I was curious how it compared to my KitchenAid, so the same day I made the pizza dough, I also made a pound cake (using the smaller clear plastic bowl and cookie beaters). It also came out great! The cake had a different consistency than I've ever gotten before from my KitchenAid mixer. It was really light and delicious. The next day I made two recipes (I made them separately, not in the bowl at once) of coffee cake, which also came out very well. It takes a little getting used to using a mixer bowl that is in the shape of a bundt pan, but I can confirm after using this bowl and these beaters three times that is does an excellent job with cake batter! If I continue to use it, I'll probably upgrade to the stainless steel beater bowl. It's nice using a clear bowl, but it is not the most sturdy material and I've heard some complaints of the plastic cracking.

So far I've also used this mixer to make Homemade French Bread, which came out delicious! I really love how open the bowl is which makes it easy to add more flour when the mixer is already running.

I'm excited to use this mixer for so many things. If you're an avid baker and are having some issues with your KitchenAid, I highly recommend switching to this mixer!