Jane Lumley wrote:

> I'd be grateful for thoughts and appliance recommendations.

I had a Kitchen Aid that lasted over 25 years, kneading many loaves of
bread effortlessly. By the time it started to die the quality of KA
appeared to have gone way down. I've heard many other complaints similar
to yours. I got a hold of the new manual and compared it to mine. For
what was supposed to be the same mixer, the recommended knead time had
decreased *significantly*, from 10+ minutes to 2 minutes! And people
were burning out their mixers on that limited time.

So I replaced my workhorse with a Kenwood 7 quart capacity 3 years ago,
and haven't looked back. I can easily knead enough dough for 4 loaves of
bread (probably more, but I haven't needed to do that much yet). I can
also do large batches of cookie dough -- including the full recipe for
the (not) Neiman Marcus Cookie hoax that has been floating around for
years. Great recipe, but I had to halve it for my 5 quart KA. Kenwood
now appears to to be marketed under Delonghi in the US.

Karen R, with a batch of just mixed starter, flour and water ripening in
the mixer now.