Looks interesting. I don't think anything could convince me to replace my 30 yr old KA mixer. It's been wonderful!

One of our daughters has a Bosch and loves it for making her bread dough and other types of dough but prefers her KA for cakes, even cookies.

Anglophiliia, I've had a KA for probably 25 years. In the new place I don't have a space for a mixer on the counter or even in a cabinet. So I will have to store the mixer in the cupboards in the banquette. Which means I will have to lift and carry over to kitchen whenever I need to use it. The storage in the banquette will be in a big drawer, so I would most likely have to lay the KA on it's side. So being able to have something much lighter and smaller sounds like a great plan for me. Plus I'm loving how this thing mixes! Oh, and there's a lid, no more flour or confectioners sugar cloud!

Bosch

Annette:

I got the Bosch mixer and love, in the picture below you can se it and behind it is what I made with it that day before Christmas.

I love this mixer. Have this universal plus and the older one universal. I have the metal bowl as you can se. As I live in Sweden mine did not come with any cockie paddles or wips just the wisks for cream and eggwhites. I have seen that with the US one you sometimes get that with them. I also have the blender, citrusjuicer, meatgrinder and nutgrinder that goes on the meatgrinder.

The older mixers bowl you can't wipp cream or use the other atachments because the doughhook drive is on the bottom but I like it doughs and this for all other things. It is a work horse, strong but maybe a bit loud but light enough to carry and got sucktion feet to it stays put. I would never buy another mixer but gonna buy the bowlscraper and doughhook extender for small batches of breaddough.

Ask anything you want to know or se.

// Björn Sweden

I had KA mixers for many years until one died and I was gifted a Bosch Universal. I bake a lot of bread and I love the Bosch for that. It is also great for whipping things. I don't like it as much for cakes and not at all for cookies. I find it inconvenient to use for those things and I just got a KA on a great deal and will have both. I have a pop up mixer shelf where I will keep the KA. The Bosch is much lighter and easier to move around, so it goes in a drawer. I could manage with just the Bosch, but am happier with both.

I have had the Bosch Universal Plus for quite a few years now. I bought a 1,000W Quisinart stand mixer and made a medium to small size batch of white flour cinnamon buns. The dough was soft and nothing like making whole wheat bread. I didn't even get finished kneading the dough and the thing over heated and shut down. So that went back to the store and I got the Bosch. I have made up to 6 loaves of 100% whole wheat bread at a time but usually make 4 at a time on a regular basis. You can get a dough hook extender for smaller batches. Mine came with the dough hook, whisk and cookie dough paddles and I also got a blender (which I don't use much) and the food processor for slicing, grating. etc. I have never had a problem with any of it and I use it quite a bit. The food processor is powerful and nice when grating lots of carrots or cabbage etc. When I make sliced cucumber pickles I love the slicing blade. I highly recommend it. Mine has the plastic bowl.

For small batches of dough or whipped egg white you may not like the fact that the bowl has the column up the centre. It isn't bad, I just use a spatula to get the ingredients scraped out, but that is likely the only draw back I can think of.

I bake cakes and too many of my recipes won't comfortably fit in my 5,5 qt KA. A double batch of Italian meringue goes flying. I used to have a 6 qt pro, and they barely fit in the bowl so that's not enough of an improvement to get another. I had a 1960s model that I absolutely adored. Upgraded. Except for size, I wished I hadn't. I'm so not in love with KA anymore. My 6 qt couldn't hold onto the plate that holds the paddle. It, along with the paddle and the grease from the gears, kept falling into the bowl. Then the planetary action got all wonky and the paddle scraping the bowl made everything gray. Forget royal icing. No adjustment would help. I still have lots of problems with ,y new mixer not incorporating Ingedients in The bottom very well. So the KA is out. I'm going with the Ankarsrum mixer when out kitchen is all done. It is kind of like an XL Bosch universal but has a stainless bowl and comes in pretty colors.

As for storage, my mixer lives on the floor in my pantry and still will. I took a piece of scrap plywood, cut it to size, and stole the casters off a crummy old tv stand in the garage. So now it gets wheeled around the kitchen on its own skateboard and I don't have to do anything but lift it to the counter. When I put it away, I don't have to break my back stowing under the bottom shelf. Love it.

I have had the Bosch Universal Plus mixer for about two months. It replaced my KA mixer and it outperforms it in every way. It weighs about 12 lbs so it's much lighter than the KA. Mine stays out on the counter, but it is light enough to take out and put away easily. It handles large batches of stiff dough easily and without straining the motor or moving around on the counter. There are suction cups that hold it firmly in place, yet it can be repositioned or moved with no effort. I have soapstone and was worried about those suction cups, but they do not damage or hurt the counter in any way. I have the dough hook extender which works well for smaller batches of bread dough. This mixer works great for everything, from a small batch of cake batter or cookie dough to triple batch of heavy bread dough. It doesn't look as pretty on the counter as a KA, but function was more important to me.

So happy to hear that the Bosch will fulfill my needs. I see that if I buy the attachment beaters made for doing cake batter I will be able to do smaller batches.

Now that Ankarsrum has got me looking into those. I like that there is more metal parts, but that makes it heavier obviously. Can you put the lid on the plastic bowl while in use? I like that the Bosch allows you to use it with the lid on so am hoping the Ankarsrum allows this as well.

My mom have the Anskarsrum and its rom the 1970:s. It is a great machine, quiet, built like a tank but not to heavy. My main concern with is what you already poited out, no lid for the bowl. If you like a metal bowl for the bosch buy an extra, mine came with it as standard and I would like a plastic as extra.

I dont think there is more metal in Ankarsrum over Bosch.

The one I can say is there are a bigger learning curve with an Anskarsrum mixer than a Bosch if you are used to a KA.

Do a search on youtube and watch some of the videos of both machines and go and feel them if you can.

I traded up from a KA to a Bosch about 5 years ago and it's still going strong! I love my Universal!! Spend the extra $$ to get die cast metal attachments-totally worth it. I love the fact that it comes with a 10 year warranty and knocks the sox off of my old KA in terms of performance. I have the blender attachment and it works like a charm. I'm a semi-professional baker and unless I could get my hands on a Hobard N50, I'll keep using my Bosch! Good luck!

My Bosch has the plastic bowl and lid. But it is not just a cheap plastic. Likely nylon or whatever those strong flexible materials are. The drive on the motor is all metal and many of the attachments are metal. The cookie paddles are plastic but seem to be on a metal core and you can get the metal piece that attaches to the drive instead of the plastic one. None of the "plastic" parts have cracked or shown any wear on mine.

Any regrets on either the bosch or ankarsrum (other than $$$)?

OP is downsizing, would the bosch compact make more sense than the universal? If you have the universal, how many people are you regularly baking for?