Score!

I got this for Christmas when I burned out the old 90's eyesore making divinity. If you had asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I would NOT have said a mixer, because I got one for my birthday, and the cost of that one equaled approximately half of what my house is worth. However good the Bosch may be for making 4 loaves of bread at one time, it is not good for daily duty. In fact, it's a pain in the rear, and it's UGLY. It looks modern, but 80's modern, and I'm into neither of those things. The Bosch was bought in tandem with a grain mill that also looks modern. Both of these sat out on the counter in the 50's kitchen and stuck out like a sore, gangrenous thumb. While you CANNOT do without the Bosch for mixing bread dough, it can't make candy at all unless you buy the stainless steel bowl (which costs more than the Sunbeam Heritage mixer) and cookie/candy paddles (which add even more of a financial burden to the mix). Furthermore, the big pylon sticking up in the middle of the Bosch bowl can be bothersome. Stuff like muffin batter sticks to that, the sides of the bowl, and it's just a pain in general. The wire whisks are too fragile for certain recipes (like thick candy or semi-thick quick bread batter), and the dough hook doesn't mix anything very well except bread dough. The cleanup is atrocious. It's very inconvenient for daily mixing. So thank God my old Sunbeam MixMaster caught on fire in the middle of a bad batch of divinity, pompously attempted during a rainy evening. It was way too ugly to keep out and took up precious cabinet space anyway.

I purchased the Sunbeam Heritage throwback with the generous gift from my in-laws this Christmas. (It's only fitting as the batch of divinity that murdered my former Sunbeam was on their behalf. LOL!) Appropriately, this mixer has mixed reviews, but so far so good from my end. My maiden batch of tortilla dough turned out superbly. I don't care about the noise, and you would have to be something of a fool to expect to make a real hardy yeast bread in this gadget. IMHO, the die-cast housing is purely for looks and nostalgia, though the weight of it did keep the mixer from "walking" during the moist, relatively soft tortilla dough knead. By far, for my needs, the most important aspect is the cleanup. And it doesn't hurt that it's retro and fits in with the decor.

The Sunbeam Heritage stand mixer rates 4 starbursts (because remakes can't get 5 here at The Atom Mom) mostly for the convenience factor and partly for the guts to produce a retro product. (I always appreciate a hat tip to midcentury madams like myself!)