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Recently I've had the chance to review both a high end kitchen aid stand mixer, as well as the more mid priced Aucma stand Mixer.

I've had good experiences with those products I decided to drop my price threshold even lower and see what I get with the purchase of a $50 stand mixer. I recently picked up the dash stand mixer from Amazon. It has thousands of very positive reviews so I was curious about what it could do and whether it could be a great budget choice for the kitchen.

What you’re getting

This device is marketed as a stand mixer, it is absolutely not a stand mixer in the same way a KitchenAid is. This is an actual fact a hand beater affixed to a base and with a dedicated bowl. It makes for a cute design, and a nice display piece on your counter, but don't mistake the stand mixer design for power.

I could certainly use this device for things that you would otherwise use a hand beater for, but it is absolutely not for thicker doughs or heavier batters.

Build quality: 100% plastic

Construction of this mixer is entirely plastic; the only metal parts on it are the actual beaters in themselves and the main bowl. Even the base of the bowl is plastic that has been screwed in to the metal. Naturally the fully plastic construction keeps the cost down. While this device certainly does not have the weight behind it that a metal KitchenAid does, suction cup feet keep it in place very well.

Using Dash Stand Mixer

Using the machine is easy enough; the bowl locks into a sliding plastic base. The sliding base is operated with a lever and allows you to shift the bowl from side to side to get better contact between the beaters and your batter.

The bowl is on a rotating platform and you can turn it with your hand or it will start to spin on its own with enough momentum. As far as I can see there’s no way to force it to spin; there’s no mechanics that would do that.

Making banana bread
The mixer seems to handle things like creaming butter and sugar well enough.
Because the beaters stay in a fixed position, you need to use the lever to move the bowl side to side to get all the batter mixed. Similarly, it’s up to you to turn the bowl to get everything incorporated. It can seem a little frustrating. With a dedicated hand beater, you are able to move the beaters all around the bowl to incorporate everything easily. Here, movement is limited.

Speeds, power & noise

I will say the speeds on the Dash mixer are a bit ridiculous; the lowest speed is still powerful enough to cause flour to explode all over the counter. The higher speeds sound like a small drone that may be about to take flight from the countertop. This mixer is noisy but it’s not deafening.

In the end, it was able to handle the banana bread batter, but I did have to stop and do the final mixing by hand, because there was no good way to slow things down and incorporate the flour more gently.

Making meringe & Whipping cream

My next test I opted to try a meringue. I'd say on this task it failed miserably. Using just two egg whites, there was not really any way to make good contact with the beaters, so while the egg whites formed up a bit, they could not get enough air incorporated to make a fluffy meringue.

To test this out I poured in a larger volume of whipping cream and sent to work. After about six or seven minutes I still had liquid cream. Again, I was extremely disappointed that this mixer appeared in capable of incorporating enough air to properly make whipped cream.

Maximum 3 minute run time

One other caveat; the manufacturer recommends you don’t run this machine for longer than three minutes. I am a little surprised by this. When I made my meringue I definitely exceeded the three minute run time. Even after about seven minutes the meringue had not come together so I gave up.

Overall review of Dash Stand mixer

Overall, I am extremely disappointed in this machine and I don't recommend it. It doesn't have any low speed operation, it's loud, and messy, and the beaters don't make good contact with what's in the bottom of the wide bowl. Also with a max three minute run time, and I have serious doubts if it could even handle some things like bread dough.

So, who this machine is for? The retro looks and cute stand mixer type styling make this actually a pretty piece for the countertop. But it doesn’t have enough power to be a workhorse. This would be good for a child who is getting interested in baking and mixing, or someone who just wants to do light cake batters, but any serious baker is going to be disappointed.

The Dash Stand Mixer sells on Amazon for about $50US.