On Aug 4, 3:17*pm, "Brian Christiansen" <brian_christi...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> "Jonathan Kamens" <j...@kamens.brookline.ma.us> wrote in message
>
> news:g77kpf$2bm$1@jik3.kamens.brookline.ma.us...
>
> > Having once again smelled the smoke of hand-mixer doom, we are
> > once again in the market for a new one, and so I thought I'd
> > post and ask: is there a mixer on the market that won't give
> > up the ghost after a few years (and if so where can we get
> > it), or are we doomed to continue contributing to the
> > ever-growing global waste disposal problem as long as we want
> > to keep making chocolate chip cookies?
>
> Well, I use either a pastry cutter
> (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Pastry_Cutter) or a potato masher,
> which I think works better than a pastry cutter, to cream the butter and
> eggs together, then a wooden spoon to stir in the chocolate chips and the
> optional nuts. *Neither of those things burn out.
>
> I have mixed the cookies using an electric device like a mixer or food
> processor from time to time, but it is neither faster nor "easier" than
> using the hand tools, at least in my opinion. It is just more clean *up..
>
> You can even mix the chips in with your hands as the following recipe
> recommends:http://theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/...p?RecipeID=111. *I
> have never done it that way, but I would highly recommend washing your hands
> before doing the mixing, even though you washed your hands, or at least
> should have, before you started cooking.
>
> I don't know if you use the mixer for something else, but the bottom lineis
> that cooking had been done with hand tools for a lot more of human history
> than power tools, and quite often, they are actually the better choice
> (though one time I tried making mayonnaise with a whisk, and that is just
> for the birds).
>
> Brian Christiansen

I can't think of anything easier than creaming shortening and sugar
with an electric stand mixer. Clean-up? Pshaw, a quick hot-water
wash (under the running water) with a little soap smeared on, and the
beaters are good to go. Plus, I can finish the recipe in the stand
mixer, using only that one bowl and a spatula. I'd never try creaming
shortening and sugar by hand - it just doesn't work as well. IMO, of
course.

As for the OP, I can't imagine mixing cookie dough with a hand mixer.
I use mine sometimes for brownie batter (homemade- it's thinner than a
box mix, actually), frosting, and beating eggs for whatever. That's
about all I use it for.

N.