The best hand mixers – sometimes called hand whisks or hand beaters – make light work of more tiresome baking tasks like whisking egg whites, creaming butter with sugar and whipping cream. Typically compact and inexpensive, they tend to be less powerful than most stand mixers, which makes them ideal for smaller quantities or if you need more direct control over the mixture.

Hand mixers can be used in short bursts for kneading soft doughs, too. Nearly all the models in our test, however, struggled to incorporate flour from the edges of bowls. Additionally, heavy doughs or long kneading can damage the alignment of the gears and put the motor under strain, so a stand mixer may be a better investment for regular bread bakers.

We tested a range of hand mixers from popular brands like KitchenAid, Kenwood, Bosch and Dualit, so read on to discover which models came out on top. For more unbiased expert buyers' guides, visit our reviews section to find over 200 round-ups of everything from the best slow cookers and best microwaves to the best coffee machines and best blenders.

Best hand mixers at a glance

  • Best hand mixer: Smeg HMF01, £149.95
  • Best compact hand mixer: Kenwood Quick Mix Go, £39.99
  • Best professional-looking hand mixer: Dualit hand mixer, £74.99
  • Best cordless hand mixer: KitchenAid 5KHMB732, £149
  • Best stylish hand mixer: Cuisinart RHM100U, £34.95
  • Best value hand mixer: Breville Flow Collection VFM034, £29.99
  • Best quiet hand mixer: Bosch CleverMixx MFQ2420, £42.99
  • Best KitchenAid hand mixer: KitchenAid 5KHM9212BER, £130
  • Best handle on a hand mixer: Russell Hobbs Desire hand mixer, £32.49
  • Best hand mixer for easy use: Tower hand mixer, £24.99
  • Best lightweight hand mixer: VonShef hand mixer, £23.99

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Best hand mixers to buy in 2025

Smeg HMF01 hand mixer

Smeg hand mixer with star buy badge

Best hand mixer

Pros:

  • Available in a range of colours
  • Efficient
  • Backlit digital screen

Cons:

  • High price tag

Star rating: 5/5

Wattage: 250W

There’s no denying it, this Smeg mixer is expensive. But it’s well built, and we found it comfortable to use. With a choice of six colours and a distinct retro style, it has a quirky appearance that sets it apart from others on the market.

On test it was impressively speedy at whipping cream and didn’t struggle with tougher tasks like mixing bread dough or making buttercream.

With nine speeds to choose from, it offers plenty of control and the backlit screen on the handle shows how long you’ve been mixing for. It comes with dishwasher-safe whisks, beaters and dough hooks, plus a handy cotton bag to store them in. We also like the trigger below the handle which makes ejecting the attachments very easy.

Kenwood Quick Mix Go hand mixer

Kenwood Quick Mix Go

Best compact hand mixer

Pros:

  • Easy to store
  • Five speed settings
  • Made from 30% recycled plastic

Cons:

  • Reassembling the parts can be fiddly

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 350W

If you love to bake but face the challenge of storing all your equipment in a small kitchen, Kenwood's latest gadget is one of the most space-efficient mixers we've ever used. Released as part of the brand's Go collection, which also includes a stand mixer and food processor, this stylish hand mixer comes with cord storage and a lid that slots securely on top, so you can keep it proudly on display without cluttering up the counter.

Available in two colours, 'storm blue' or 'clay red', this model has five speed settings and two attachments (a whisk/beater and dough hook), both of which handled our mixtures with ease on test. The manual is also impressively detailed, with diagrams and a usage table that should help you avoid overworking the appliance or selecting the wrong attachment.

Remembering how everything fits back together might be a little fiddly for some at first, but most users should get the hang of it after a few uses. You can even clean the attachments in the dishwasher.

Dualit hand mixer

Dualit hand mixer

Best professional-looking hand mixer

Star rating: 4.5/5

Pros:

  • Robust build
  • Powerful motor

Cons:

  • Expensive
  • Slightly heavy

Wattage: 400W

The Dualit whisk has delightful sleek lines and curves, and is all shiny chrome and black, making it a handsome, sturdy machine. With a 400W motor, it’s also a little heavy, which may be a problem for some. There are only four speed settings, but each packs a punch – at the top speed, this mixer flies.

The efficient motor performed exceptionally well in all our tests, including the bread dough, though it did start to struggle after a couple of minutes. We love the retractable cable storage that tucks the cord neatly away inside the machine. Though one of the more expensive hand mixers on test, it’s justified thanks to the excellent results it produces.

KitchenAid cordless hand mixer 5KHMB732

Kitchenaid cordless hand mixer

Best cordless hand mixer

Pros:

  • Lightweight
  • Easy to store
  • Cordless design
  • Four colours to choose from

Cons:

  • Only one set of beaters

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 16W

This KitchenAid hand mixer is more expensive than most, and as it only comes with one set of beaters, it’s less versatile. Having said that, what it does offer is KitchenAid’s signature style, four colour options to choose from and the freedom of cordless mixing. Once charged you can use it anywhere, which is great if you have a kitchen island without plug sockets or you like to prep on the dining table.

There are seven speeds to choose from, and in test we thought it was effective at whisking egg whites and cream and mixing light, fluffy buttercream. The mixer is also well balanced and doesn’t feel heavy, and despite being quite straight, the handle is comfortable to hold. It will perform a quick charge in 10 minutes – if you get caught without any life in the battery – but a full charge takes two hours, so it's best to plan ahead.

Cuisinart RHM100U Cordless Power hand mixer

Cuisinart HR badge in high re

Best stylish hand mixer

Pros:

  • Speedy
  • Cordless design
  • Handy battery-level warning

Cons:

  • No eject button for attachments

Star rating: 4.5/5

Wattage: 10W

With a sleek metallic finish and clean modern lines, this Cuisinart mixer is certainly good-looking, but thankfully it doesn’t fall into the ‘style over substance’ category. In our test, the stainless steel beaters effortlessly whisked cream and egg whites, and it coped just as well mixing thick buttercream. You’ll have to pull the beaters out by hand, though, as there’s no eject button.

This cordless mixer requires a 130-minute charge, but that’ll give you 20 minutes of cordless mixing, which is ample time for most mixing tasks. Having the freedom to mix anywhere makes this a practical choice, so long as you remember to keep it charged. Having said that, there are three lights that steadily start to turn off as the battery level reduces, so you do get a warning that it needs a recharge.

In use it’s quiet and nicely balanced, with a handle that’s more comfortable than it looks. The beaters are dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning.

Breville Flow Collection VFM034 hand mixer

Breville hand mixer with recommended badge

Best value hand mixer

Pros:

  • Budget-friendly price
  • Efficient motor

Cons:

  • Ridged design can be tricky to clean
  • Heavy

Star rating: 4/5

Wattage: 240W

As part of the Breville Flow collection, this hand mixer matches a range of other small kitchen appliances, should you want to buy a matching set. It’s a great budget choice and is one of the least expensive mixers you can buy. It doesn’t feel cheap or poor quality and the performance is very good.

Despite only being 240W, it didn’t struggle to mix bread dough or thicken buttercream and it whisked egg white and cream with ease. The main downsides are that it’s a little heavy and the on switch, which is also the speed switch, requires a bit of effort to move, meaning it’s easy to accidentally push it past the first speed setting and end up on a faster setting than you intended.

The ridged design isn’t the easiest to wipe clean but thankfully the sturdy attachments are dishwasher-safe. Overall, given the price, this is a good all-rounder.

Bosch CleverMixx MFQ2420 hand mixer

Bosch CleverMixx hand mixer

Best quiet hand mixer

Pros:

  • Not too heavy
  • Efficient

Cons:

  • Power cord is positioned awkwardly
  • Beaters are a tad flimsy

Star rating: 3.5/5

Wattage: 400W

This simple-to-use mixer is lightweight and won’t break the bank. There are just four speed settings to choose from which might not be enough for some. But during our tests it was fast enough to whisk up cream and egg whites quickly, yet also slow enough to mix buttercream without creating clouds of icing sugar.

Our only complaint is that it’s easy to flick the switch to turbo as you’re turning it off, which could be messy if you have a habit of removing the beaters as you switch it off.

The main beaters feel flimsy, but the dough hooks are very sturdy and cope well with heavy dough. Both are dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning. It’s quiet in use and has a comfortable handle, but the plastic has no grip so it’s best not to hold it with damp or greasy hands. Additionally, the power cord is poorly positioned, so can catch on your wrist during use.

KitchenAid 5KHM9212BER hand mixer

KitchenAid Empire Red hand mixer

Best investment hand mixer

Pros:

  • Classic design
  • Sturdy all-rounder

Cons:

  • Some vibration at high speed

Wattage: 85W

The classic KitchenAid nine-speed hand mixer is a sturdy, light whisk that comes in gloriously glossy colours. Included is a range of four different accessories in high-quality stainless steel, including beaters, dough hooks, a whisk and stick blender.

These come stored in a neat little canvas bag. The whisk is well-balanced, lightweight, and has a state-of-the-art electronic speed switch that’s effortless to use. It performed exceptionally well in all the tests we set it. This is the most expensive whisk in our selection, but it delivers by the bucketload, and is well worth the price.

Read our full KitchenAid nine-speed hand mixer review.

Russell Hobbs Desire hand mixer

Russell Hobbs Desire hand mixer

Best handle on a hand mixer

Pros:

  • Lightweight
  • Good range of accessories

Cons:

  • Confusing eject button

Wattage: 350W

The five-speed Russell Hobbs is a good-looking whisk, with a black matte and shiny finish. It comes with impressive accessories made of good-quality stainless steel, with an unusual but efficient cross between a beater and whisk that performed extremely well in our test.

The large, comfortable handle and great balance make this an easy whisk to use, though there is some vibration and noise at the top speed. The Russell Hobbs is an excellent whisk that, despite feeling a little flimsy at first, is, in fact, a sturdy little workhorse with excellent accessories at an affordable price.

Read our full Russell Hobbs Desire hand mixer review.

Tower hand mixer

Tower hand mixer electric whisk

Best hand mixer for easy use

Pros:

  • Sturdy design
  • Powerful motor
  • Low price

Cons:

  • Noisy
  • Unbalanced when attachments are in place

Wattage: 300W

The Tower hand mixer is a good-looking machine, with a robust, stainless steel body and accessories belying its low price. The 300W motor brings great power to the whisk, but this also creates a little vibration, and, at high speed, it becomes a little noisy.

The only downside we found during our test was that the front of the whisk can be a little heavy, which throws off the balance when the beaters or dough hooks are in place. If you can look past this, this is a sturdy whisk that delivers well across almost all functions and is very easy to use, making it a good buy for the price.

Read our full Tower hand mixer review.

VonShef hand mixer

VonShef cream hand mixer

Best lightweight hand mixer

Pros:

  • Easy to handle
  • Value price
  • Good looking

Cons:

  • Attachments don't feel 100% secure

Wattage: 300W

The VonShef is a well-built and stylish whisk, with a retro shape and cream-and-silver colours. It’s a light 800g, and though not overly large, performed extremely well during our test thanks to a robust five-speed 300W motor and good-quality accessories.

We especially like the generous curved handle with two finger grips. We’d like a firmer, more reassuring click when inserting the accessories and a firmer push is needed to eject them, but despite this, the attachments stayed in during our test. We highly recommend this affordable, robust whisk not just for the great results it produces, but also its good looks and great handling.

Read our full VonShef hand mixer review.

Other hand mixers tried and tested

How to choose a hand mixer

Hand mixers are straightforward machines. Nearly all models come with twin beater and twin kneader attachments. Balloon whisk attachments can be very useful, so look out for these.

Some models come with a bowl and stand that the hand mixer clips onto. This will not be as powerful or large as a purpose-built stand mixer, but these accessories are particularly helpful for those who struggle to hold a hand whisk or don’t have the storage space for a full-blown stand mixer.

Hand mixer next to dough

What to look for in a hand mixer

  • Weight and balance: We looked for mixers that were easy to hold for several minutes of whisking, that didn’t tilt up and weren’t too heavy.
  • Handle: This needed to be comfortable, not too broad or sharp-edged. We favoured those that were non-slip.
  • Ease of operating: It should be possible to both hold the mixer and change the speed setting with only one hand. This leaves the other hand free to steady the bowl or add ingredients while mixing.
  • Speed: The speed settings should be distinctly different, with gentle speeds for softly whipping cream and faster settings for tackling buttercreams and thick batters.
  • Quality of build: We looked for sturdy attachments that clip easily into the mixer.
  • Vibrations: We rejected mixers that vibrated too much in the hand as this can be very uncomfortable.
  • Storage: We looked for clever storage solutions for attachments and cords.

How we tested hand mixers

Egg whites
Each mixer was used to whisk 100g egg whites to stiff peaks using the beater attachments, and again with the balloon whisk attachment. We noted how fast the eggs whipped, what the final volume was, the thickness of the foam, size and regularity of bubbles, and the glossiness of the whites.

Double cream
The second test was whipping 200ml double cream with beaters, then balloon whisks. Cream is easy to over-beat, so this was to test that the lowest speed setting was gentle enough.

Buttercream
This was to test the speed and power of the hand mixers. Achieving soft, fluffy buttercream takes a lot of beating. We looked out for overheating, dragging of the beaters and unhealthy motor sounds.

Kneading
Each mixer was used to knead a dough made with 250g flour. Again we were looking at power, sturdiness of the attachments and ease of control.

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This guide was last updated in February 2025. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability please get in touch at goodfoodwebsite@immediate.co.uk.

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Comments, questions and tips (3)

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juliantruffle8LKcHzxC

Just a quick note for anyone considering the Bosch hand mixer - it's a very poor design, the whisks broke extremely fast despite giving it very little use. My experience with Bosch products in the last few years had been very bad, had a 100% failure rate.

anshudigitalmind98682

This blog is an invaluable resource, offering a wealth of useful information that is both practical and insightful. The detailed explanations and well-researched content make complex topics easily understandable. Each post is thoughtfully structured, ensuring readers can readily apply the knowledge…

juniperfromgallifreytRbw8wuY

Not one of these is suitably lightweight enough to hold over eggs and whisk meringue with. WHY is this impossible to find??? Please tell me why no one can make a small push beater which takes a rechargeable battery!? I've now bought 3 cheap milk wands from China on Amazon with a balloon…

Wot2cook

The Von Shef mixer is absolute rubbish. I have had this for about 3 years and the whisk attachment has broken about 4 times. Each time Van Haus have replaced the WHOLE mizer (seemingly no spare parts) but I have had to send a photo showing the plug cut off the end. All in all a complete waste and…

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