My Kitchenaid Rant

So I finally bought a Kitchenaid stand mixer about a month ago.  I was all proud of myself because I got a 325 Watt 5 quart mixer for 200 plus a mail in rebate that took it down to 180.  That's a picture of it, nice and pretty red.  I know that's a can of instant oatmeal in the background.  Don't worry, they are for oatmeal cookies (we'll get to them eventually) not for eating oatmeal (blech).  

I haven't gotten my rebate check yet and I am already thoroughly annoyed. 

It came the day before heading to Vegas so I didn't have a chance to take it out and test it and all.  So it sat there in the box until the weekend after I got back.  It was kinda sad bit I was so tired from the trip and trying to catch back up at work I didn't have time.

First off, I had a real disagreement with the box and the styrofoam inserts holding it in place.  The styrofoam has a really tight fit in the box.  I mean REALLY tight.  Perhaps I was a little over zealous so this one I maybe can't blame on the mixer but I will anyway.  So eventually I got the thing out of the box.  Then I turned my apartment upside down in search for a 3 to 2 adapter because all of my outlets in my kitchen are 2 prong and the mixer is obviously 3 prong. Eventually I stole it off my air conditioner.  It was December so I didn't need the A/C for a while.  So I finally got the mixer set up on my counter.  Yay!  Go me!

So I turn the mixer on with nothing in it, play with the speed adjuster, the lock for the head, check out the lock down for the bowl... it's looking OK.  Then I hear this clunk.  I look in the bowl and there is a screw laying there.  Fortunately I didn't have any of the mixing attachments on yet.  So I pick up the screw and see that it's from the underside of the mixer head.  I find this a little suspicious but I get my screwdriver, screw it back in and tighten up the other screws as well.  A little odd but no biggie.  I take the bowl, all the mixing attachments, and wash them and wiped down the mixer.  Woohoo, I'm ready to make cinnamon buns!  At least so I think.

So I start my cinnamon bun dough, of course the one from Good Eats, my tried and true recipe but this time my shoulders won't be tired from kneading the dough!  So I add all the liquids get them going and add the first batch of flour and yeast.  That's when I looked in the bowl and I see these black flecks.  And every time the mixer goes around I see a clump of them.  So I stopped the mixer and looked and found there was a bit of grease right at the base of the mixing arm that I didn't get under when I wiped the thing down.  I know, I know, I should have seen the grease when I was wiping it down but I was only wiping for dust, didn't anticipate grease in a little crevice.

So I dump my dough, take everything apart and clean everything again.  This time more carefully.  Back to making my dough.  So this time I make it all the way through adding all the ingredients and I switched over to the dough hook.  That's when the squeak started.  Every time the planetary head went around it squeaked.  I was a little suspicious and I played around with it for a bit at different speeds, thinking maybe I had it too fast or too slow.  It still squeaked every pass of the mixing head, regardless of the squeak.  Well it still worked so I didn't worry too much about it.

Next I made a cookie dough.  I guess it was a lighter dough or something but I didn't hear the squeak again so I thought it maybe was just a fluke.  

A couple weeks later I was making a heavier cookie dough and the squeak is back.  This is upsetting but customer service was not available at the time so I figured I'd call some other time.  I then decided to send an email to them since I am not usually home in time for their hours.  They never answered my email.

I decided to call them tonight at work since I was never going to find a good time to call.  After going through all their menus I finally got to a person.  Tony.  I told her my issue and she said she had to hear it to do anything.  Slightly annoying but I can accept that.

So Gary came up from Richmond today.  He stopped by and we chatted and he mentioned he'd be here all week and would be all sorts of excited if I brought in some baked goods sometime this week.  So I asked him for an idea since I was uninspired this weekend and he suggested oatmeal cookies.  There we go, I have an inspiration!

So I get home and start making the dough.  I use the one on the Quaker oats can except I added dark chocolate and dried cranberries as well.  Pretty simple.  I'm mixing along when suddenly *CLUNK*!!!! and the mixer pretty much stops.  That stupid metal thing on the front that says Kitchenaid on it that's for the grinder attachment came off!  Not only that it came off and fell in the bowl!!! Not only that, it damaged my paddle!!! See that big chip out of the pic!!!!!!! (I don't know how to make the pic in the middle of the blog or how to change the orders of the pics at the top but you can figure out which one is which)  So this is an unhappy moment although since the dough is all over the place I didn't know it yet.

So I start adding in all the mix ins, the oats, raisins etc when I hear the squeak.  So I'm kinda excited and I bring over my laptop and try to figure out what to use to record the squeak.  Since this thing is only a couple weeks old too I haven't found all the stuff on it and I didn't know what would work for recording.  I figured Garageband would do it but every time I tried to record something and play it back I didn't hear anything.  Eventually I realized I had to turn the speakers on (I know, I'm just a computer genius like that)  So I got it recorded (Yay!) and converted to mp3 and saved on my email so I can play it for the kitchenaid people tomorrow.  I would post the squeak but it seems like too much effort right now.

And this on top of finding out at 4PM that I have to be in an all day meeting tomorrow and I have to have stuff put together for it.  At least I'm ready to call Kitchenaid.  They better be happy with my squeak recording.  It's only about 5 seconds because I didn't want to overmix my dough lol.  I'll have to make cinnamon buns this weekend if they need to hear more.