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Breville HeatSoft stand mixer with Good Food badge

Pros
HeatSoft feature works quickly, smooth acceleration, intuitive and easy to use, good selection of attachments
Cons
Mirrored top prone to finger smudges, bounces around a bit when mixing at high speeds

Read our full review of the best stand mixers

How easy is the Breville HeatSoft stand mixer to use?

Very little assembly is needed to get this stand mixer going. Simply attach your chosen attachment, lock in the bowl, and you’re ready to go.

There are four attachments included with this model: a beater, flex-edge beater, whisk and dough hook. For everyday baking tasks, this is everything you’ll need.

The speed of the mixer is controlled by a 10-speed dial on the side of the body. The acceleration is smooth and controlled, meaning light ingredients like flour and icing sugar weren’t sent flying out of the bowl on test. We did find, however, that at higher speeds, the stand mixer shook around a little. It also appeared a little unstable when kneading dough.

This model is easy to operate without referring to the manual. The intuitive dials and clearly labelled buttons mean you’ll be acquainted with this machine in no time.

All the attachments are well-made and sturdy. The addition of the flex-edge beater is a welcome one, though we did have to scrape down the bowl once when we were making our lemon drizzle cake. Unlike some of the other models we’ve tested, you’re not able to buy additional attachments, like pasta machines or mincers, for this Breville machine.

Results

Our three test recipes came out just as we hoped. The cinnamon & pecan sticky buns were soft and well-baked, the lemon drizzle cake was light and moist, and the ultimate meringues had strong, stiff peaks.

We didn’t have to interfere much with the stand mixer. The dough for our buns came together well, though as mentioned above, the machine did jump around a little. It whisked egg whites and sugar together brilliantly and was very quick, too. And, we only had to scrape the bowl down once when beating the butter and sugar together for our lemon drizzle cake. To put the HeatSoft technology to the test, we used fridge-cold butter for the cake – the heater softened the butter in a matter of seconds.

How sustainable is the Breville HeatSoft stand mixer?

Despite its impressive performance in test, it was the HeatSoft stand mixer’s sustainability credentials that saw it lose points. Unfortunately, the mixer arrived in a box filled with plastic packaging, much of which was not recyclable. We also struggled to find any information about purchasing or accessing spare parts, except for a general customer service number. It comes with a relatively short one-year warranty, too.

The cost to run for 5 minutes on medium speed came to 34p.

Conclusion

If you’re a fan of last-minute bakes or are just looking for something sturdy and reliable, this Breville stand mixer is a brilliant choice. It’s sleek and intuitive to use – we loved the addition of the melt and soften buttons, which work wonders on cold butter and chocolate. Its 5.2-litre bowl is a generous size that's perfect for big bakes, while not being so large as to tip this mixer into professional-grade stand mixer territory. A brilliant buy for keen bakers.

Available from:

Currys (£249)