Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

I am a very lucky girl and my other half has just treat me to a KitchenAid.  Im itching to use it… but wondered if anyone had any advice or tips for using them… is there anything i need to know, or any to die for attachments.   The bowl which has come with it is only 4.5l i think… when making bigger cakes how do you suggest mixing… is it possible to split the ingredients ??

so many questions.. !!

I had to google kitchenaid as I had never heard of it.  I see it is a mixer.  I use a Kenwood that may be older than some of you girls/boys!   Attachments I have found handy are a dough hook and a whisk.  I never used the mincer, cheese grater, blender etc that I bought so think carefully (but that’s just me).

When I mix cakes that are a large quantity I often do it in batches or just mix the sugar, eggs, butter in the mixer and use a larger bowl to then incorporate flour (and fruit if using).  It is tempting to mix as much as possible in mixer but I don’t think it’s a good idea.  Loss of aeration?

Hope you have lots of fun with it!

Recent Amazon review rated Kenwood as best for capacity and durability. I have the Kenwood Platinum which is extremely large but still make my mixes in batches as my oven can only take 4 eight inch rounds at a time or 2 nine inch rounds or two eight inch squares. Not much point in making up huge batches if they have to hang about to be baked. As with any stand mixer, you win when making butter cream, you can beat hell out of it for ten minutes or more and get a super delish filling. Easier also for making French, Italian or Swiss butter cream. Great toy, ENJOY!

Hi, I have been using a kitchenaid for nearly 2 years, and I couldn’t be happier. I found the biggest size cake mix you can use is for a is a 10″ square, I wouldn’t go over that, but if you need a bigger one, just simply make more than oand ale and  put them together. You don’t need fancy attachments either, I use the paddle the most for my cake mixes, and the whisk for cream and meringues. Enjoy!

Hi, how do you work out the ingredients for vanilla sponge cake for different sized cakes.
Eg: if the 10″ cake is 550g of sugar, flour and stork and 10 eggs. how much extra would I add for a 12″, 14″, 16″ etc

Hello christine140

The recipe can be scaled up using either the ready reckoner or the cakeometer tools here:

What Size cake tin to use

Both tools are easy to use, please read through the blog for additional information on using the ready reckoner.

Hope this helps.