I wouldn't go more than 8 cups with a 250 watt motor, less for
wheat/whole wheat and rye bread doughs. The most I've done in our old
K45 is 6 cups of mixed white and wheat, and I felt bad for the mixer, it
was straining so much. (It's an old friend that's served us well, so I
hate to stress it too much.)

I'm assuming you have the model with the tip-up motor head. If so, 8
cups of flour would be pushing it's capabilities, both motor-and-
drivetrain-wise and structurally imo. For extended kneading after all
ingredients are well mixed, I would split the dough up into a couple
smaller batches.

Bob
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In article >,
says...
> I have a small Kitchenaid mixer (250 watts) and have used it for preparing
> many one and two loaf bread/flour dough batches. The recipe I would like
> to try calls for 5 lbs of flour and it seem that cutting it in half would
> be the easiest way to handle the amount of dough with my small mixer.
>
> Will a mixer this small even handle 2.5 lbs of flour for bread? I am
> guessing that is about 10 cups of flour which will fit into the bowl.
> Thanks for your input.
>