Kenwood Kenwood Go Stand Mixer KZM35.000GY

Purchased to replace my until now trouble free 47 year old Kenwood chef original model. Good: great price, delivered promptly, compact, easy to lift with inbuilt handle, accessories and stand mixer all well packaged. Not good on 3 counts, hence fewer stars:1) advertised cord storage doesn't operate (power cable on arrival fully extended, not retracting, folded with a wire tie and looked unused).2)pulse function (p) on the speed control doesn't seem to operate.3)no instruction manual in English on line, and only basic visual instructions contained in box. Hoping instruction manual might fix points 1 and 2 above.I have emailed Kenwood support for advice.

First Impressions: It arrived well packaged with everything intact and most of the packaging is recyclable. It looks sturdy and sleek. It is slightly smaller than my (very old) Kenwood Chef but the bowl is actually bigger. It did not come with a cover (unlike my old one) but you could use the fairly thick plastic it came in as a cover if you wanted. I like the feel of the various blades, and the carry handle and added measuring spoons are a neat touch. The splash guard is a very welcome addition which wasn't on my older model but is much appreciated.The booklet seemed to suggest the plug cord was retractable but I could not see how to achieve this. It also suggests (if you look at the picture) that the beaters etc just pull straight out, but you need to rotate them ... MoreFirst Impressions: It arrived well packaged with everything intact and most of the packaging is recyclable. It looks sturdy and sleek. It is slightly smaller than my (very old) Kenwood Chef but the bowl is actually bigger. It did not come with a cover (unlike my old one) but you could use the fairly thick plastic it came in as a cover if you wanted. I like the feel of the various blades, and the carry handle and added measuring spoons are a neat touch. The splash guard is a very welcome addition which wasn't on my older model but is much appreciated.The booklet seemed to suggest the plug cord was retractable but I could not see how to achieve this. It also suggests (if you look at the picture) that the beaters etc just pull straight out, but you need to rotate them anti clockwise first. The height of the beaters did not need adjusting in my model which was great. The splash guard just pushes into a groove, which does take a little bit of force and pulls back out so I think you'd need to be a bit careful not to crack the plastic ridges otherwise it will no longer stay in position.First use: I made a fruit cake to really test the K Beater. It mixed and creamed the butter and flour lovely. The wide shallow tablespoon measure is genius for getting treacle out of. I had a go at being very lazy and adding one egg at a time while the beater was still going. The bowl was great for cracking eggs against and I was able to add the eggs carefully into the bowl to the side of the beater. The beater coped really well with all the flour and dried fruit but I don't think the soft start function always happened. It was pretty easy to get all the mixture off the beater and everything was really easy to clean afterwards.Dough Hook: I made pizza dough with the dough hook and it coped very well. The power was good and it never sounded as though it was struggling. I felt like i needed to adjust the hook a bit lower to pick up all the ingredients but this was pretty impossible to do mid use as the I had dough all over the hook and couldn't get a good grip. However, increasing the speed (which I was a bit nervous about doing) really helped to pick up all the ingredientsSummary: This is a stylish and sturdy stand mixer which works really well and has some clever additional features such as the splash guard and genius measuring spoon. It manages mixing, beating and whisking with ease and is very simple and intuitive to use.