Mixer for large scale kitchen tasks

Author's Rating:

Pros: Heavy duty motor capable of BIG mixing jobs. Lots of attachments. Sturdy

Cons: Performs poorly with small kneading jobs; expensive; walks off counter

The Bottom Line: 
A good choice for folks who like to bake home-made bread. Super heavy duty motor and large capacity handles big tasks. Multiple attachments and accessories make it very versatile.

Author's Review
The Bosch is a serious heavy duty mixer. We bought it primarily for making home-made bread. We have 6 people in our family, and like to make large batches of dough, which is beyond the capabilities of our Kitchen Aid. With the Bosch, we can mix up huge batches of dough (16 cups of flour) without any problems. The US 110 volt version of this machine has a 700 watt motor (European 220 volt version has 800 watts) which makes this mixer capable of mixing up big heavy batches of bread without straining. In comparison, the Kitchen Aid can deal with less than half the batch size of the Bosch. The kneading action works very well with large batches, and the bread turns out much better than with hand kneading.

We haven't given the Kitchen Aid away, however, because the Bosch doesn't do well with small dough kneading tasks. The large bowl and dough hook are too large for small (1 loaf size) batches, and the dough is just pushed around the edges of the bowl, rather than kneading. We mostly have this problem when making pasta dough where a small batch is the norm for us. We have the old style bowl and dough hook, and I don't know if this problem would be addressed by the newer bowl which has a center column and different dough hook design.

Controls on the Bosch are simple and intuitive You can operate the machine on three different speeds, and there is a timer, so that the machine will turn itself off. You can't leave the machine alone when kneading large bread batches, however, as it has the tendency to "walk" off the counter. There are two different attachment points on the base, one for the mixing bowls, and one for the blender.

The 6680 came with a large 5 1/2 quart metal bowl, a large dough hook, a smaller 2 quart plastic bowl, and beaters for whipping and beating tasks. Lids for the bowls were also included. We purchased separately a 6 cup blender, and a meat grinder and pasta maker. Our big metal bowl is the "old style" bowl without the center column. The dough hook attaches at the bottom of the bowl, rather than at the top of the center post. The absence of the center post gives our bowl a slightly larger capacity than the newer models. The trade off is that the whips don't work with the large metal bowl, and so you need to use the smaller 2 quart plastic bowl if you need to beat eggs or other such tasks. Basically, the big bowl is for kneading dough, and the small bowl is for beating and mixing. The newer models have a big bowl with a center post that accommodates the beaters as well as the dough hook.

The 6 cup blender works well, and is fully capable of grinding up lots of ice cubes in smoothies or other typical blender tasks. It is made of some sort of unbreakable plastic, and has a nice, curved lip which makes pouring easy.

The small 2 quart bowl with the whips works very well for whipping up eggs, mixing up batter, and other such tasks. The whips really crank, and on high speeds can make some serious frothy liquids or very light meringue.

We have never used the meat grinder to grind meat or make sausage, but it is necessary in order to use the pasta maker attachment. The pasta maker works reasonably well. It extrudes the pasta, rather than stretching and cutting like many other pasta makers. There are attachments included to make pasta of all sizes and shapes, but we have more success with the the larger sizes. The problem with the tiny noodle sizes is that they tend to clump together, and separating the strands as they come out of the machine can be a bit of a pain. That said, for making larger pasta noodles, the machine works well, and is certainly easier than trying to make fresh pasta by hand.

Overall, we are very happy with this machine. We already have lots of other specialized kitchen appliances, so we use it mostly for bread and pasta making. For kneading large batches of bread dough, I don't know of any other machine which comes close to the capabilities of the Bosch. For someone who doesn't already own other small kitchen appliances, the Bosch could probably take the place of pretty much all of the other common appliances if you bought all of the attachments for it. There are attachments available for pretty much any kitchen task you can imagine. It's kind of heavy, however, so if you were going to use it constantly, you may want to keep it on the counter top, rather than storing it on the storage shelves like we do. It's not really ugly, but it wouldn't win any beauty contests either. For folks who are remodeling their kitchens, there is a newer built-in model that might be worth checking out.

If you like to bake home-made bread, the Bosch is a worthwhile addition to your kitchen. We use it once or twice a week, and have been very happy with its performance.