Kenwood KM 005 Titanium > Reviews (1)

This is my first review for some time, but then its a long time since I have purchased an item that I have become so enthused about.

The reason in the first place for this buy was the death of my old Moulinex masterchef and my really old Phillips hand beater, they both packed up within a week of each other Gremlins methinks!!. So without further ado I started some research into what would be the best buy bearing in mind I have limited kitchen space so individual processors and mixers were out, after much wandering on websites I had a peek at Lakeland online and spotted the Kenwood Chef KM001 and it looked impressive so without further ado I grabbed hubby and took him into town so that we could have a look, he didn't know it yet but this was to be his gift to me!!, he also was impressed with the construction of the machine so with that we went home to search the world wide webbly for the best price, it was during this search that we stumbled across the boss of the said machine the Kenwood MajorKM005, 1200 watts of pure metal beauty, 6.7 litre capacity now thats one big cake you can make!! and 20 possible attachments, boy was I now drooling.

REASON FOR DROOLING

I am now no longer found in Topshop at the weekends those days have long since gone, I no longer get a thrill out of Manolo blahniks or Jimmy Choo's, I am now found loitering in Lakeland Plastics or the Kitchen dept of Debenhams, my hubby no longer needs to go to Ann Summers to arouse me he just needs to pull out an egg whisk!!, this has come about due to an ever increasing obsession with food and the cooking of it, I read cookery books instead of Jackie Collins, watch Saturday Kitchen instead of Eastenders, this has been a gradual transition since my teenage years but has increased funnily enough since packing up the evil weed a year ago.

Back to the review.

After some careful price checking we ordered my machine through Tesco online, now I have to commend Tesco's as they had made quite a cock up on their website (now corrected) and to cut a very long story short I got the Kenwood KM005 for the price of the KM001 at £219.99 but it should have been £280.00 and even that was cheap compared to other online shops, and this included delivery, so three days later a rather large box appeared and my story begins....

On unpacking the machine the quality and sheer weight cannot be denied at 8kg this is a machine you need to keep out on your worktop, its not an in and out of the cupboard one. It arrived well packaged and came with a glass liquidiser, the famous K beater, a balloon whisk, a dough hook, a splashguard and a very comprehensive cookery book which has sections on each available attachment and recipes for it which is great, its very concise and a hive of information. The Major itself has numerous speeds and a pulse option and runs much quieter than earlier models ( new gearbox which I am afraid I know nothing about) and a 6.7 litre bowl big enough for a substantial sized crimbo cake of which it is so powerful it would make light work of it.

I skimmed the manual which is the usual thing in our house but it was very easy to put together, we had to adjust the beaters a little as they were not quite sitting low enough but then I was ready to go. The K beater is a large mixer with the letter K in the centre and this is used for mixing all cakes, for crumbing biscuits for cheesecakes etc, the balloon whisk is used for things like egg whites and whipping cream and the dough hook speaks for itself.
Everything about it from the way it feels to the satisfying click you get when you put the head down to mix something is quality, the bowl is stainless steel, the beaters are solid, its very easy to clean and looks stunning in my kitchen.

I mentioned before the attachments, now the machine itself has three places to attach them, on the front you can attach a mincer (since purchased and its amazing made 2lb mince in less than 3 mins even with an audience of ooers and ahhers) a pasta maker (wishlist) and sausage maker, on the top you have 2 "ports" for the other attachments of which I have the food processor and mini mill which is superb and essential for small amounts, nuts etc, but there is also a juicer, juice extractor and grain mill to name but a few. Then you can also buy a colander and sieve for pureeing etc to use in the main section and I forgot to mention the fab Ice cream maker (yes I bought that too) that you can also get, these are both used where the stainless steel bowl is housed.

To sum up this is a great machine of which I am very happy with, I leave out the machine itself and the attachments live where my old equipment used to, I looked at other machines but for longevity and for the sheer amount of things you can do with it means it won hands down, it has the normal guarantees but speaking with fellow foodies on the BBC food website it seems many still have Kenwoods from the 70's so I am not overly anxious and there are loads of spare parts available. My only very minor quibble is the splashguard is plastic and can get in the way but its easily removed if wanted, it is handy however when adding flour as it stops the flour cloud you can get when adding it to a running mixer, but that is a very minor complaint about a Major machine. Carole.x