Kitchen-Aid, Breville or wait for the next Food processor?

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thomasortega

thomasortega

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Folks, I'm having a dillema in my life.

I'm DESPERATE to buy a large food processor because I'm addicted to homemade pasta and I can't simply destroy Kitchen-Aid mixer worm gears every 3 months making super hard pasta dough at least twice a week.
The solution is quite obvious: get a food processor as it can knead super heavy dough much easily and, if the worst happens, the only damage is a broken dough blade instead of a worm gear.

As I'm looking for a FP, of course I'm also thinking of other uses for it. I'm that kind of person that uses FPs very often, almost daily.

After MONTHS comparing, I need a final veredict between two models:

1) Kitchenaid 14 cup food processor with dicing kit, Empire red.

2) Breville sous chef 16 cup with dicing kit + optional 2 additional dicing kits.

Breaking down the scenario.

My kitchen is nearly 100% KA. Stand mixer, blender, coffee maker (I love my single-serve so much I could kiss it), toaster (also fantastic), 3.5 cup mini chopper (excellent) dual convection countertop oven (new and every day I discover one more positive thing about it), hand blender (5-speed, corded, I HATE it.), plus some accessories and I'm looking forward to get some more. (I have the all metal grinder (impressive), the food slicer (very good but one i had 20 years ago was a bit better), citrus press (IDK why I bought that because my mom bought one, exactly the same thing and it was always TERRIBLE, but anyway, I use it as it's the only citrus press i have)

My kitchen is color coded. Except for the oven and hand blender (and that's one of the reasons i hate it).
The KA FP has the advantage of being KA and being empire red, also 50% cheaper than the Breville. The cons are: the food chute is tiny, making it impossible to cut french fries (it doesn't even have a french fry disk). it has a dicer (only one size)

Breville: It has a peeler (maybe I'll use it for potatoes), it has 3 sizes of dicers (1 comes witht he unit, other two sold separately), the chute is HUGE (i mean, so big half cabbage fits easily. and it's REALLY powerful.

On the other hand, i can see Kitchenaid is slowly releasing new models and pulling the plug on older models. I don't know for sure if they will come up with new large food processors (after the fiasco last year with the 7 and 9 cup food processors that are way underpowered as they use the same motor found in the 3.5 cup food chopper)

Anyway, now i have this dilemma.
Both models will work great for the MAIN reason I'm getting a FP. one is the same brand and same color as everything else in my kitchen and I really LOVE KA. On the other hand, the other is clearly far superior (actually belongs to an upper category of FPs), but costs twice more.
Add to the mixture KA possibly releasing a new model full of bells and whistles (as they discontinued the two TOL models) and I may end up just like with my hand blender. (My husband bought it right when I was waiting for the new model to come in Empire Red and exactly the day he gave me (our wedding anniversary) Kitchen-Aid finally released the Empire red version, cordless and will all sorts of accessoriesand I ended up like Katie Kaboom right on our anniversary day.

I also don't want to wait to long, just in case the 14 cup in Empire Red ends out of stock (it's still available in some stores)

By the way... I'm very picky about my appliances and getting any other brand or model or getting a vintage, used or refurbished unit is UNTHINKABLE in my kitchen.

So guys, kitchenaid 14 cup, Breville sous chef 16 cup with the optional dicing blades or wait to see what KA brings next?
 
Breville

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I haven't used a KA or Breville FP but I can speak to the Breville quality.  I have a Breville Bread Machine and a Breville coffee grinder.  They seem to be very well made and knock on wood I haven't had any real issues with them.  The coffee grinder is used every day and the bread machine has been getting a lot of use lately and it hasn't skipped a beat.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">As far as FP are concerned.  I have burned out a number Cuisinart FP over the years.  I like one I had because it had a really nice pasta maker that sat on top and made great pasta but the quality isn't there.  They don't seem to be made for heavy use.  I finally got tired of burning them out and bit the bullet and bought a Commercial Robot Coupe.  I watched them on eBay and found a really good deal on one.  Someone was closing a restaurant and the machine did not have a lot of use.  I paid less than half of what they are new.  It's a beast!  I suspect I won't be buying another.  I think I paid around $400ish for it which is what I suspect you'll pay for the Breville or close to it.  If you can get past the fact that it won't match your other things it might be a good option.  I'm really glad I did it.  They are made for the long haul.</span>
 
KitchenAid has cheapened a lot of their food processors by not using an induction motor anymore. The cheap motors are not only underpowered but also not very durable. OK when you don't use them a lot but if you do, you'd better stick with one that has an induction motor. You can tell by turning it on and off, a foodprocessor with induction motor starts and stops immediately, a cheaper one without needs some time to get to a full speed and also needs a short time to stop.
 
Magimix

Are simply the sturdiest FP there is its powerful and has never stalled or refused to work, As they are used in catering situations they must be ok.

Had mine for years its beginning to look a bit worn but plenty of life left :|)

Austin
 
A food processor with a geared down universal motor sounds like a drill when its on.These have for the most part plastic gears in them which will strip when used to knead dough.Go to a commercial cooking equipment supplier and buy a Robot Coupe.These are VERY expensive but should last you your lifetime.Its a tool made for heavy commercial use.For a householder will last your life-and parts are easily replaced and available-bowels and blades.These also have the induction motor.And the induction motor equipped machine is heavy-the gear universal ones are light for their size.
 
I have the

Kitchen Aid food processor attachment for my stand mixer. It shreds, slices, and julienes. It does not chop. It has a nice storage case, and requires a bowl under the outlet chute. My sisyer gace it to me, as she found it not useful enough. She got a full size Kitchen Aid processsor. I've used it once, and my vintage Cuisinart does it all.
 
That KA FP attachment is useless to me. I need aFP mostly to make pasta dough.

KA mixers can make pasta dough, but they take too long and only very small batches follows by a long cool down period. I can hear the mixer is struggling...

Plus.. the load is too much for the worm gear (I'm on my second gear starting to fail).

Fp's on the other hand, do great with pasta dough (30 seconds is usually enough for the first mix) and I can see they don't suffer that much.

Then, of course, as I already have a FP, then the other accessories and disks come useful. But I'd never buy a FP just because of the disks.
 
Perhaps rather than a different FP you get a better mixer.  I love my Nutrmill and it will power through some very heavy dough, stuff that strained mu KA.  Down side it does come in white with red, but it's mostly white...
 
My Mom had the same problems with destroying mixers making dough/Pasta.
My Aunt and Mom both had low blood sugar and they all ground there on flour and made there own breads.
Food processors/mixers would either break or bog down.
They bought a Magic Mill/Ankarsrum Mixer slash everything. Its not cheap but, its made in Sweden. My Mom used that machine for years and my Sister has it now and is using it.
It replaced everything in her Kitchen save for a food processor but the cuisinart was fine for the rest. That machine is a lot easier making dough and pasta cause the open top
 
I’ve always just made pasta by hand the old fashioned tried and true way.  It’s not hard, and kind of therapeutic to work the dough.  

 

If you have a pasta maker (the machine with the rollers and cutters, either hand cranked or on your Kitchenaid) this also works the dough to help refine it as you run the dough thru it until you achieve the thickness you want.

 

Making pasta by hand doesn’t take a long time and is sure easier cleanup than cleaning a machine.  If you’ve never tried it before Thomas make a small batch and see what you think.

 

Eddie
 
Tom,

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">If you are making that must pasta dough each week I would really consider going the commercial route.  I don't think home machines are designed for that kind of work.  With so many restaurants closing right now I know you could find a nice Robot Coupe for a hugely discounted rate.  That's how I got mine about four years ago and the thing is a beast.  It will do all the pasta dough you want.  I considered the Magimix when I was looking because they are made by Robot Coupe but then I realized I could get a commercial machine for about the same money and I knew I wouldn't use the extra attachments.  Mine has the continuous feed slicing, shredding, dicing and all that stuff.  I use the dicing a fair amount but don't seem to do much slicing and shredding.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">My last FP before this one was that huge Cuisinart with the three bowls, etc. and I never used them.  I don't know if you would but it's just another thing to consider.  That Cuisinart didn't last but a couple of years and they wouldn't do anything about it.</span>
 
Eddie, I've made pasta by hand (volcano) zillions of times.

Nah, thanks.... the world evoluted... i prefer using my hands to press a button. worst case scenario, fo course, if i HAVE to, of course I will do, but why use muscles when we can use the brain?

SPECIALLY for pasta dough that is SUPER hard.

I had the Electrolux Assistant in Brazil.... I loved it, the problem is it's too big and not really good for small batches (i mean, batches that are too big for a KA mixer) but would also be too big for Darryl and I only, so not very practical for everyday use.

The electrolux assistent (that now has a different name and is no longer made by Elux) can, however, deal with making pasta dough with 18 eggs as easily as a KA mixer whipping egg whites the motor doesn't even notice it's working with such huge load.

And cleanup... well... we know the pasta dough is "ready" when the bowl is "clean". Because of the high speed mixing, it forms several tiny balls that look like "airsoft" pellets and then, it suddenly forms one giant ball, in seconds... (of course you have to finalize kneading by hand for 1-2 minutes) cleanup is SUPER easy. just toss everything in the DW. Slow mixers, like LA or the electrolux, try to knead everything together, which is much more difficult for any motor (but the Assistent is wonderful for those monster loads.)

Years ago I had a Philips/Walita food processor that had a separate bowl for dough/batter. it was the very best "pasta mixing" machine I've ever had. Good as the Electrolux assistent, but worked great with smaller batches. at that time I had exactly this and the assistent in my kitchen.

thomasortega-2020072715450906905_1.jpg
 
I have not used my

K45 vintage 1990 to make pasta. I have a pasta machine from Italy. It mixes it quickly, and extrudes in reverse. The dough isn't very heavy. You add the semolina, other flour, and salt. once it turns a few times you drizzle in olice oil, a beaten egg, and just enough water so the mixture becomes pea size pebbles, then you extrude with one of a dozen dies of choice. I can't imagine a pasta recipe that strains a Kitchen Aid. Possibly the pasta roller accessory, but I don't have one.
I've made brioche dough, which is dense, rye bread, and Nieman Marcus cookies which are super dense with no strain on the motor.
 
Breville. Or, genuine Commercial Hobart. Never KA

Kitchen Aid, today, is all about the look and not about the durability.

Sadly.

You get some really well engineered stuff and then there's the trash when some bean-counter has taken a really well-engineered product and raped it.

Nothing to be done about it, they're Whirlpool which, in 2020, is another word for trash.

 

Buy Hobart or Breville. Or, get a light duty commercial pasta maker. Light Duty will cover your needs perfectly for years.

 

I'm so mad at KA for their trashy mixers, I'm done with anything after their takeover for good.
 
A dough hook is for dough, Breville;

not pasta! A pasta machine has a double, or triple rotating horizontal paddle folding the mixture like a paddle wheel boat. A frined bough a Breville round the bowl mixer and tried making white bread with it. The nylon or whatever gears stripped. It was a month old.
 
LOL! That's why I'm getting a FP
FPs (with the dough blade) deal easily with super hard pasta dough, but not well with sticky yeast doughs.

Bread ina FP? A Mistake that we make once in life and probably many of us destroyed their first FPs doing that. (I had to destroy 2 and they were great and freaking expensive TOL FPs from the 80's, just to be really sure hahahaha)
 
I use a food processor primarily for bread dough and would have no other than the Cuisinart Custom 14 (14-cup capacity). It is also the top-rated processor by America’s Test Kitchen. Price is around $200. (Note: Other Cuisinart models score lower than the Custom 14.)

 

The 12-cup Breville BFP660 is next on the list; price around $300.

 

 CR’s top-rated model is the 16-cup Breville BFP800XL/A with an overall score of 81. Don’t think they test the machines on bread dough, anymore, unfortunately. Price is upwards of $700. The 12-cup Breville BFP660 is further down the list, with an overall score of 64. Price around $300.

 

KitchenAid processors are middle-of-the-pack at both CR and ATK. Had one back in the early 2000s, and frankly, have no desire to try the brand again. Didn’t have the muscle for bread dough.
 
We all have such wildly different experiences

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I had the Cuisinart (I think the 14 cup) it had the three bowls and the attachment caddy.  I don't have it anymore so I attached a photo.  I had nothing but trouble with it.  When I tried to make any kind of heavy dough in it (usually pizza dough) the lid would disengage and the machine would stop.  The controls didn't work half the time.  The pulse button would stick so if I was pulsing an onion for example I had to hold on to the plug to pull it because I never knew when it would stick.  I gave it to a friend of mine who was going to tinker with the controls to see if he could fix it.  He told me it didn't fail for him as often as it did for me.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I know they are supposed to be good machines and most likely I had a lemon.  This was at least the third Cuisinart I had over the years.  Cuisinart wouldn't do anything about the failing controls because I had just exceeded the warranty.  And back then I know I paid over $300 for it.  This is when I finally decided to bite the bullet and go for the commercial machine. </span>

chachp-2020072906065508748_1.jpg
 
The only Cuisinart food processor to own is the Custom Classic 14 pictured below. Nearly all the newer, fancier Cuisinart models--as you pointed out, Ralph--are middling performers at best. 

 

Reminds me a bit of Speed Queen's strategy. The performance of their redesigned TR top-loader did not impress SQ aficionados, so Alliance soon made one of the classic models available, as well.

 

While I'm generally the first in line to try a brand's latest offerings, the above-mentioned are two instances in which the "classic"designs are the better performers.

 

 

frigilux-2020072908183706767_1.png
 
Ralph, that Cuisinart model is part of their "value" line, nowhere near constructed like the classic, original Cuisinarts. It's the equivalent of Newton Maytags vs. Atlantis Maytags that were essentially Norgetags.
 
I didn't know that...

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">That likely explains why I had the experience I had with it.  It was clearly not made as well as some of the older machines I had and a disappointment.  Now that I think about it, I may have bought that off of QVC but I can't be sure as its been a number of years.  If I did that makes sense because it seems some of their products (not all) look like a higher end model but aren't quite the same.  </span>
 
another vote for Robot Coupe

I was a professional cook for 30 years.

First place I worked used to buy Brevilles and had to replace them every few months. They got hard use from unsympathetic ham-fisted people. (not me...)

They eventually stumped up for a Robot. It was idiot proof and bullet proof. A fantastic machine.

Next place I worked also had a Robot. It never needed any attention in the 15 years I worked there. Still as good as new.

 

Breville is nothing special here in Australia. It is a long established Aussie company, has cheap models built to a price, and quality models that are much better. I suspect they have created an "upmarket" image overseas by only selling their top end models. Having said that, I have quite a few Breville gadgets and am impressed with most of them. I used to be a shareholder in the company that owned Sunbeam here, and despite my attachment to Sunbeam, when I compared equivalent models, tended to buy Breville. As a shareholder if we attended the annual shareholders meeting in Melbourne, they would give us a small Sunbeam appliance as a thank you gift. Most were dreadful... except the digital scales, they were great and I still have them.

 

anyhow, go for the Robot.
 

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