Ode to the Mixer

So remember when I mentioned that I was using a mixer many years older than I for my baking? After months of wondering whether it was going to survive the next baking adventure, it has been officially retired. Until of course, I have an apartment and need a mixer. Then it will come back from hiding.

It was a good mixer. It served me well. It even made marshmallows with me. Thank you, dear Sunbeam Mixmaster, for your years of good service.

My parents got each other a new, shiny, red Kitchen Aide mixer for their 35th anniversary. I think I'm way more excited about it than my parents even are. And it's their mixer. Haha.

So, in order to inaugurate this wonderful mixer, I had to scheme up something to make. Hummus wasn't going to be much help in using a mixer. So I searched through the mixes in the pantry for something to make and ended up with Pumpkin cookies with Ghirardelli chocolate chips.

It took like 30 seconds to mix the dough. Seriously. It took longer to have a lesson in using the thing than it did to actually make the dough. So fast. Crazy. And it was so uniform. Amazing.

It is definitely a completely different type of mixing. Suddenly the bowl doesn't spin anymore. It's weird. And the beater is a whole different thing. It kind of attacks the dough.

I know this has nothing to do with my baking ability, but using this thing actually made me feel like a better baker. It must have been the nice uniform dough.

Anyway, the oven still smelled like garlic from the hummus about an hour before . . . so I opened the door and instead of smelling cookies, I smelled garlic. It was kind of unnerving. At least they don't taste like garlic! Oh, and the bittersweet chocolate kind of takes over the cookies. They weren't as pumpkin-y as I had hoped, but good none the less.