I think one kitchen gadget that most people would love to own if they don’t already is a stand mixer. They look great and are fantastic for a multitude of baking scenarios from beating, whisking and kneading dough. Savisto is not a brand I’d heard much about before but am excited to try out their Retro Food Stand Mixer which retails for under £100 which is an amazing price for what you get.
The Stand Mixer comes with three attachments, a transparent lid and a silicone spatula. The large stainless steel bowl has an impressive capacity of 5.5 litres, is ultra light to carry and has a chunky handle that’s easy to grab hold off. It looks fantastic and I know I will fit whatever quantity of mixture I want to make up in it. The whole stand mixer has a stylish look and a smooth, curvy structure which is easy to wipe down after use.
It may look impressive and stylish, but the big question is how easy is it to use and how well does it work? So with my little boy Mister B’s 6th birthday party on it’s way I got started on a basic cake batter. Being a little unsure on how the mixer would perform, I made my first batch with just four eggs but having done that you could easily fit a batter double the size in the huge bowl!
Each of the three blades simply fits on with a push and twist. It’s so easy that you can chop and change if required. Also if you want the lid on you need to click that into place before the blade attachment. Below you can see me creaming the butter and sugar together, the finished chocolate cake batter, and mixing up a minion yellow coloured buttercream to top the baked sponges with.
Once your attachment is in place simply turn the lever to release it back down into the bowl and add your ingredients. Mixing was an absolute dream, just turn the dial to the required number (you have six speed options) and off it goes. It works really efficiently and is a total pleasure to use.
I split my first batch of cake batter into two tins for two layers of the main birthday cake. Later I made a third layer and multiple cupcakes in various sizes.
I ended up making several batches of cake batter plus a couple of batches of buttercream which I couldn’t have done in the time without the ease of the Savisto Stand Mixer. It’s quick, efficient and the bowl is so easy to scoop the mixture out of and wash up! A huge bonus from the clunky, 16yr old food processor I have been using to do my baking up to now. The bowl is large and smooth making it so simple to clean, if you are changing what you are mixing, you can easily wash it out in a couple of minutes and use again.
With a multitude of cakes made it was time to decorate which took me way into the late hours but fortunately the birthday boy was thrilled with the results just like I was thrilled with the pleasure of using the Savisto Retro Food Stand Mixer. 
When a gadget is easy to use it always makes life simpler and means it’s something that you will use again and again. I can’t emphasise how simple this stand mixer is, you just click the bowl and required attachment into place, then turn it on to one of six speed settings. Et Voilà! A cake is made! 
I’m very impressed with Savisto, for the both the price and style. They sell a range of kitchen gadgets so do check them out and see what they have. There’s probably something on there that would make a great Christmas gift and I can certainly say that I recommend the stand mixer for any keen bakers out there.
I fancy trying a meringue based recipe next with my new Savisto Stand Mixer to try out the whisk attachment, so keep your eyes peeled as I’ll share my results in a future blog post!
All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.
The Great Baking Set contains all the basic equipment needed to make some mini cupcakes. You get a couple of bowls, one with a suction base to help it stick to the worktop, a 4 hole silicone baking tray, spoon measurers, an egg cracker, cake cases, icing nozzle and bags.
Mister B being younger has not had much experience in cracking eggs so was keen to try the egg cracker. I think this is great for really young ones as it ensures a clean break with no eggshell to remove. Miss M being older and already used to breaking an egg prefered to do it on the side of the bowl as usual.
They then added some flour and cocoa powder before filling the cake cases as well as the cake pop and donut moulds from the Cake Pops set. 
The donut style moulds looked great when the cakes where turned out and the children really loved these as they looked different and fun. Miss M was then eager to have a go with the piping bag, so she mixed up some butter and icing sugar, then added a bit of blue colouring to make her icing. She found the icing bag easy to squeeze out of and the nozzle was a good size for icing her cakes. 
We then moved on to complete our cake pops. The set contains cake pop moulds along with the donut shaped moulds, some chocolate cone shaped moulds and sticks.
We’d already made the cake pop ball shapes along with our cakes above, so the next step was to pour some melted 
Overall we’ve had fun with the children’s Real Baking kits and the kids have been inspired to want to bake even more. They’ve had a go at different techniques and created various things and it’s great to get them involved in the kitchen although I have to say my two are always keen when it comes to making something food orientated. 
We were also supplied with some 
To reduce the amount of chocolate in the bags we piped some just straight through the nozzles on the bags and then fitted it into the pen which the children both said was much better and lots of fun. They loved using the pen, although my slight disappoint was the lack of chocolate that the pen could hold meaning the bags ran out very quickly. That said it didn’t faze the children and they loved filling their moulds with different coloured chocolate and tried to create multi coloured designs which they did all on their own. 
I think the results were brilliant. We did leave them in the fridge for half an hour or so, but when we pressed them out we were left with really shiny shaped chocolates that looked very good. It was definitely something different that the children really enjoyed and filled up their snack pots for the next few days!
Miss M made a basic biscuit dough in a bowl which we then halved for the children to share in making their own biscuits. Mister B had a go at rolling a piece of the dough on the guided rolling sheet and managed alright as he is not used to rolling dough, but Miss M who is 8yrs old is a little more experienced prefered to roll out the dough just on the table to allow a larger working area for cutting cookies.
They spent lots of time cutting out various shapes, thoroughly enjoying their time choosing their cutters and rolling the scraps out to make even more. Some of the cutters had smaller ones of the same shape which they cut out of the middle to make some special stain glass window biscuits.
In the biscuits where they cut out the centre the children added a hard boiled sweet and we were really pleased with the results when we saw them come out of the oven. The sweet had melted and filled the inside of the biscuit giving it a true stain glass window effect.
Once the biscuits had cooled, the children were really excited to decorate them so I got the icing pens and sprinkles out and let them get on with it. When I came back to see their results I was really impressed! Don’t they look so pretty? 
With the leftovers they made biscuits in each of their initials – I think these look fabulous! 
