The Mixer that Saved the Day

I received this mixer as a wedding shower present in June of 2007 after having registered for it at Macy's. When I did my registry I knew I wanted this mixer in particular because I wanted a mixer that I would be able to walk away from while it beat or mixed in things like egg whites, which are normally very time consuming and cause my arm to go numb, or anything else for that matter. I saw a similar mixer being used by Paula Deen on her Food Network show and was immediately in love. After having used the clunky enormous KitchenAid mixers in my friends and relatives kitchens I knew I wanted this one due to its similarity to a hand mixer. This mixer is just that essentially but with many additional benefits. It has an aptly powered 450 watt motor with 12 speeds from Folding/Kneading (settings 1,2,3) Light Mixing, (settings 4,5,6) Creaming/Beating, (settings 7,8,9) and Whipping/Aerating, (settings 10,11,12). Rather than click into place the speed setting rotates smoothly to access any in-between speeds as well. This mixer comes with two stainless steel bowls, (2 ½ qt. and 4 ½ qt.) which rotate while the mixer mixes. You can change the bowls easily with the flip of the lever on the side. I found that right out of the box the mixer was pretty easy to understand without reading any instructions and the whole concept of its engineering was very practical and made to be straightforward. And after use I was able to throw the bowls and the beaters in the dishwasher (while I don't know if it's recommended)without any damage being caused to them. And just wiping down the rest of the machine with a warm cloth cleans of any messes.
My mixer came with regular hand mixer type beaters, whisk beaters and dough hooks. Each pair of the types of beaters comes color coded with one being white at the end and the other being red at the end so that it is easy to tell which beater goes in the left or right hole. It does seem a little heavy at a little over 24lbs. but considering that other comparable mixers are in the same range, (most just a bit heavier) I guess this is what should be expected.
The real test came when I came up with the hair-brained idea that for my wedding favors I would bake Dark Chocolate Madelines. Over 480 of them. Now I realize my folly, however thanks to this mixer (and my wonderful bridesmaids who were undoubtedly cursing me for trying this endeavor just days before the wedding) I got the job done. We had things down to a science. I was loading the smaller bowl with the ingredients for the egg white mixture and putting them to whip while another bridesmaid was cooking chocolate and loading that and other ingredients into the other bowl to be chilled. Once it was chilled that bowl got mixed. Then we put them together in the large bowl and folded them in together before loading the batter into pans. The timing was perfect while using this machine and without it I would have had four bridesmaids with some very achy arms at my wedding. Some other details: the mixer is 18 inches in height, 8 ¾ inches in length and 16 7/8 inches in depth. The body is made of heavy duty die cast metal and comes in white and stailess steel.