Making a cake with the RONSON FOODMATIC!

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All ready,

The recipe, ..
3 cups sugar
3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup Crisco
2 sticks Land O Lakes margarine.
5 eggs
7/8 cup Seven Up
1 tsp Lemon Flavoring...I use more, about a Tablespoon full
1 tsp cocoanut flavoring

norgeway++9-16-2012-19-25-57.jpg
 
it Makes Too Much Sence

I have been intrigued by this machine forever. I like the modern style and the practicality of design. Its too bad they aren't available for today's market. Given the sophistication of today's expensive mixer buyer they'd have a better chance of selling.
 
Similar Mixers

Two other mixers share similar designs to the Ronson Foodmatic. The first is a Braun model having a gear driven plastic bowl and having a similar "whisk" beater. It was a thread about it months ago, a member found one while shopping at Goodwill or Salvation Army store. The second was made by Black & Decker, the stand mixer of the "Cooks Tools" series. It had two stainless steel bowls that fitted over a shaft on the stand. The drive motor powered the bowl in one direction and the beater in the other direction. The there were flat beaters sized for each bowl, a whisk, and dough "hook." This mixer also featured an attachment port that could utilize KitchenAid attachments having the square shaft drive such as the Meat grinder/chopper, Salad cones, etc. These units created a mixing action similar to the Foodmatic.

Does bowl the speed of the Ronson unit increase much in proportion to beater speed? What concerns me is mixing larger quantities at higher speeds, like when making a sponge/chiffon cake or meringue for several pies. Does the bowl spin so fast at throw out what is bing mixed? Is there a slower speed beater outlet for the spiral dough hook? How noisy is the machine compared other stand mixers? I noticed on ebay someone has the stirrer cooker module for sale at a hefty price! The ice cream maker fits inside this module too.
 
Over several decades we made many chiffon cakes with the Ronson and never had an issue.  The bowl speed changes in relation to the beater speed.  The unit is belt driven and can handle moderately heavy loads, it did balk with a few heavy bread recipes, that is what prompted me to retire it and get a KA.  The dough hook is just used in place of the beater, no special fittings or outlet for it.

 

If I ever come across a reasonably priced cook and stir I might drag it out of the cupboard and but it back in service, but those are few and far between.
 
Wider Isn't Better

The mixing dynamic was first used by Birtman in the Kenmore. Braun has a similar set up but the bowl is flat and wide so there's approximately 1/3 of the bowl that is not touched by the beater. Ronson is both deep and wide. The beater for the Braun is flimsy and bends easily while the Ronson beater is taller and more substantial. GE/Black and Decker made a Kitchenaid looking model that added a full time bowl scraper to help keep the mixture in contact with the beater.
 
Nothing is a good as a fallen pound cake, so moist, such rich flavor. Hell, you could have made a truffle out of it, drown it in custard and a little vitamin Whee! Yummy in the tummy. Fallen pound cake is also great toasted. It gets a delicate finely browned crust on the tippy top crumbs. It is as satisfying as creme brulee.

Even though the recipe says 5 eggs, you can't use more than a cup of eggs. If they are extra large, that's only 4 and 5 will sink it. Sometimes I have to split the yolk and the white of the 5th egg to make it an even cup, but it makes for a more stable cake. We must have a terrible epidemic of chickens with hemorrhoids with all of the larger eggs today that mess up old recipes from when eggs were smaller. So for best results, measure instead of count eggs.
 
Possible Over Areated Batter?

It possible that the cake fell also due to too much air whipped into the batter as well? That happened with a neighbor of mine making a tunnel of fudge cake once. It was his first attempt at baking a cake and he ran the mixer for too long at too high a speed. Couldn't tell him any better!

Reviewing the recipe, a cake having so much fat and sugar in relation to the other ingredients is delicate. I used to have a chart that tell me the effects of too much or too little of an ingredient or procedure could effect a cake.
 
Hans...

That looks like one of those very nice clear frosted bowls you got on ebay. The clear bowls seem to be rare, most of them I've seen are white. You have to agree that the Foodmatic mixer is great fun to use. I think it's the most useful of all the accessories.

If you'd like me to mail a copy of the built-in Foodmatic Instruction manual, or scan and send a copy, just let me know. [email protected]

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Kenmore/Birtman Mixer

Kelly, didn't the Kenmore/Birtman mixer bowl and the beater turn in the same direction? There was a breaking mechanism that kept be bowl from spinning too fast? With the Ronson, Black&Decker, Braun models, does the mixing bowl turn or spin in the opposite as the beater? I am asking as I have never seen these mixers in operation.
 
Where to Turn?

The Beater on the Braun turns counter clockwise while the beater spins clockwise. If the beater would spin the opposite directions the bowl would pull the batter into the beater as it turned into the edge of the bowl, trapping the ingredients in a box canyon. The way it is the beater tends to fling the ingredients beck to the center of the bowl. The dough hook is shaped so the revolution of the bowl does just the opposite and sends the dough directly into the dough hook.

I meant to say earlier the bowl for the Ronson is deep and norrow. Narrow is good, wide is bad.

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so pleased about this thread!

hey all,

This is more than I could have hoped to be true. I LOVE the Ronson Corporation.
Thank God someone is willing to picture-proof all those things I had been assuming but had no proof at all about them:
Bosch: Claiming to be the first to have invented the very first swivel-arm kitchen mixer. Wrong! Ronson was first. (I do not know about any more details about this, but the Bosch is fine but not first - to my knowledge).

Vorwerk (a company that deserves to be bashed per se for its fresh, harsh and despicable lies) claiming to be "THE" inventor of the very first cooking blender. First published in France and produced there (models VM 2000 and following, later renamed VM 2001, VM 2002 and 2010), then going over to naming them TM 3000 (second generation with lever-type clamp-down arm) and TM 3300 and as of late: TM 21 and TM 31 Thermomix.
Please folks, get me right: I do LOVE my Thermomix, a fantastic blender with a cooking functionality, but I DO regret it being made by the Vorwerk folks. So top quality meets meanest corporational behaviour.

All Thermomix models were evolved in Wuppertal, Germany -> thus being a remake of the old Ronson Cook-and-Stir, then being produced in France (for cheaper logistics on their first testing market), then being re-introduced in Germany as TM 3300 (when France was already flooded with their TM 2000, 2002, 2010 and 3000 models) in 1978.
Still today these bad witches of "www.wunderkessel.de" (a so-called independent users' forum, my a...) (roughly translates as "miracle kettle.de") keep customers and cooking amateurs out of the field holding up and high the flag of "THE" Thermomix (no questions allowed, no questions asked, critical comments not regarded).
Same thing in Italy and Spain where the (notwithstanding good quality) Thermomix machine is sold as "Bimby".

But the thing that really gives my soul some piece-rewarding back stroke is: Ronson was first and Vorwerk IS a full fake, all their stories are a lie. ;-)
Thank you Ronson for having made a suspicion a true fact, for having given me back my piece of mind. ;-))
Regards, Joe
 
Well Joe,, it's no different really than what Cuisinart is saying about their "innovation". New to them perhaps. 

 

Cuisinart has taken numerous 50's and 60's appliances, such as the GE "flair" toaster oven, the Hamilton Beach pop-up toaster oven, the Salad shooter, the Proctor Silex wedge shaped blender, the West Bend stir-crazy etc , altered them slightly and proffered them up as innovations.  Thing is, anyone under 40 in most cases wouldn't have a clue that they're just copying what has been. 

 

 

http://www.cuisinart.com/products/blenders/sbc-1000.html
 
correction: piece = peace

not a native speaker here, so fighting my way through. I hope you can excuse that.
Joe
 
Petek! so true

and as I had heard, the Cuisinart thing had just evolved from some "good-things-gone-awry" brothers' fight between the Robot-Coupe manager (originally from France) when his sales-twin in the US was starting to sell these veritable machines under the "Cuisinart" brand, remaking them with some (long awaited by the public) alterations in some technical details.
Robot-Coupe then "prissy-girl"like having refrained from the American market leaving Cuisinart as the only one there (their CEO Sontheimer dwelling on his "rocket-scientist"*s reputation), later rejoining back in with "Robot-Coupe" first choice of professional chefs and "Magimix" made by Robot-Coupe (which to me is just the same sauce with a different name).

Not being interested at all in all their ("them's") social pushes and shoves, I still do believe that either of them (Cuisinart, Robotcoupe, Magimix) feature great machines. Having tried all of these I would give any of them a try to fulfill what they claim to live up to: Best materials with best service (that is what I have tried, living just 5 mins from the French border, it is true to the utmost extent: Magimix offers a substitue machine in case of emergency, so no stopping your business while repairs are going on). =Ok, this could be different when living somewhere else, I do not know.

Anyway, I am still more than amazed with the freshness and the cold-heartedness of some companies who dare to claim theirs what other humans had done or invented before. This is what I wanted to say.
 
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