KitchenAid Design Series Evergreen Review: Beautiful and Useful | WIRED

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7/10

The ubiquitous KitchenAid stand mixer—domestic icon, home cook must-have, subject of tattoos and even master’s theses—has rarely been controversial. Content to sleep tucked away within cabinets waiting to make cookies or birthday cakes, this century-old staple has garnered little public criticism for anything other than its price. (The standard 5-quart tilt-head Artisan costs $350; stand mixers from other brands run around $100.)

That all changed with this year’s Design Series release: the Evergreen. Unveiled in September, this zhuzhed-up tilt-head Artisan model is an appealing matte army green with a brass attachment insert cover, 5-quart pure walnut bowl (sustainably certified by the European Union Timber Regulation), and three steel accessories: paddle, dough hook, and whip.

It also costs $700—twice the price of a “standard” Artisan. Still, it's hard to argue when KitchenAid has succeeded in making what might be the most attractive stand mixer of all time. And perhaps its most popular—KitchenAid says it sold out of its first run within a week.

Regardless, the negative headlines popped up faster than a batch of buttermilk biscuits. The Atlantic christened the Evergreen “the $700 kitchen tool that’s meant to be seen, not used.” Food & Wine said the wood bowl had divided their staff, and The Washington Post said bakers find the walnut bowl “perplexing at best, a gesture at aesthetics that renders the product useless.”

The accompanying promotional video, featuring hikers and more than one instance of performative fern fondling, does little to dispel the opinion that this might be for people who don’t actually bake.

It was not immediately clear, though, whether many of the critics had actually used the mixer. As a longtime home cook and baker who has helped line-edit and recipe-test for several bread-related cookbooks, including a James Beard award winner, I know my way around a KitchenAid mixer (and have used an Artisan model multiple times a week for more than 15 years). I also use unlined wooden bannetons regularly for proofing bread, as well as wooden spoons and wooden cutting boards on a daily basis, so the idea of a wooden mixing bowl isn’t exactly farfetched to me.

For four weeks, I used the Evergreen as I would any other mixer, on a range of recipes—from meringues and cookies to bread and whipped cream—to see once and for all if the offending bowl is actually usable or if the Evergreen is, as other reviews have insinuated, simply a kitchen cosplay prop for the well-off.

It didn’t take me long to find one problem: Unlike on the Artisan's traditional stainless steel mixing bowl, the Evergreen’s wood bowl has no handle. However, in practice, this didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, as I realized I’m really only ever using the handle to wrench the bowl off its base or to steady it when an especially difficult bread dough threatens to unseat it.

Second, the bowl’s increased maintenance needs cannot go unmentioned. The mixer comes with a card that says to wash and dry the bowl immediately after use—in other words, no soaking off cookie dough in the sink overnight—and to regularly season the bowl with food-safe mineral oil, wood polish, or walnut oil.

This raises another problem: Many baking recipes, like meringues and soufflés, require whipping egg whites to what’s called stiff peak stage, where a whisk dipped into the concoction and lifted leaves peaks that stand tall and do not flop over. This strength lends needed structure and body to baked goods, but stabilizing whipped egg whites is a notoriously finicky process, and any kind of fat, including oil, can prevent them from reaching this stage. (In fact, KitchenAid’s Evergreen FAQ explicitly says not to attempt “whipped egg creations” in the wood bowl.) Would the oiled walnut bowl really preclude Evergreen owners from making soufflés in their $700 mixer?

KitchenAid 2024 Design Series Evergreen Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

Rating: 7/10

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Thankfully, a test batch of meringue cookies proved that whatever oil might be in or on the bowl is not enough to interfere with the process—stiff peaks were attained within five minutes with the whip attachment, and the finished meringues were as light and crispy as those I’ve made previously in the stock steel bowl. Given that users are required to oil the wooden bowl themselves, though, the amount of oil—and therefore results—may vary.

Next up, I chose a frequently made recipe for molasses cookies that requires a couple hours of chilling. The cookie dough itself came together without incident, but when I normally make this recipe in the much thinner steel bowl, the dough is chilled all the way through once the time is up. Given that the wood bowl is a full quarter-inch thick and not conductive, the cookie dough was still room temperature in the middle when I took it out after two hours.

Only after this discovery did I learn that KitchenAid does not recommend refrigerating the bowl at all, due to the cold stressing the bowl’s finish and joints. (Next time I will remove the dough and put it in a separate metal bowl to chill.)

Where the Evergreen really shined, however, was with the most mixer-intensive bread recipe I regularly make: shokupan, or Japanese milk bread, from Ken Forkish’s Evolutions in Bread (which I also helped test recipes for in a standard 5-quart Artisan).

This dough requires three distinct stages of mixing, concluding with beating cold butter into a sticky, already-mixed dough. The dough stuck to the wooden sides of the bowl slightly more than with the stainless steel bowl, but I was quite pleased with the mixer’s performance—it mastered all three steps handily, and beating the butter into the dough went even faster due to the slightly higher friction of the wood.

KitchenAid 2024 Design Series Evergreen Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

Rating: 7/10

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I was then able to successfully, and quickly, whip cream in the bowl to make Japanese fruit sandos. Some online reviews have highlighted worries about the bowl retaining odors, which would be a problem for lightly flavored creations like whipped cream. KitchenAid says the bowl will not retain odors so long as it’s properly maintained; I didn't notice any odors, but I also didn't bake anything with garlic or anything that was strongly scented while I was testing.

So, minus a few quirks, the Evergreen is a serviceable mixer. But what about its twice-as-high price? A limited-edition mixer costing more is nothing new. The last Design Series installment was 2022’s pale-green Blossom—another $699 tilt-head model with a hammered-copper bowl. (“Jewelry for your countertop,” one review said at the time).

It’s also important to note that the Design Series is but one niche in KitchenAid’s extensive lineup. There are mixers for professionals, those who want more power, and those who have less space. Why shouldn’t there be one whose added value is that it specifically looks good on display?

KitchenAid mixers are notoriously heavy to move around and bulky to store, so if you’re going to keep it on your counter, it may as well double as a work of art. Are you sacrificing some utility for beauty? A little bit. Will this likely matter to those in the market? Probably not. For those worried about the bowl's utility, there are compatible steel versions for around 30 bucks. Use one for your recipes, then pop the unblemished walnut bowl back on for display when you're done. After all, as John Keats knew a century before the first KitchenAid hit store shelves, a thing of beauty is a joy forever.

KitchenAid 2024 Design Series Evergreen Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

Rating: 7/10

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