By The Telegraph (World News) | Created at 2024-11-22 12:50:11 | Updated at 2024-11-22 18:40:10
5 hours ago
Price: £499.95 at SMEG, currently £379 at Amazon or £499 at AO
Telegraph verdict: 9 out of 10
We like:
- Retro style and vintage construction
- Intuitive operation with clear instruction manual
- Excellent, effortless results
We don’t like:
- It takes up a lot of space
- Not every attachment is dishwasher safe
It’s not ideal for smaller households
What is the SMEG SMF03 Stand Mixer?
This premium machine is the latest version of the classic SMEG stand mixer, the Italian brand’s rival to other high end food mixers such as the Kitchen Aid. It’s an upgrade on the SMF02 model, although the only obvious difference is the colourway – the newer SMEG food mixer is one high-gloss colour all over, whereas the main body of the earlier model is stainless steel.
Look closer, though, and the new mixer, which performed well in our review of the best stand mixers, includes an extra attachment (alongside the aluminium wire whisk, flat beater, dough hook and pouring shield) called a ‘flex edge beater’. Essentially, it’s another stainless steel beater, but with flexible silicone edges for helping scrape batter from the edges of the bowl.
The 10-speed SMEG stand mixer comes in six colours, has a powerful 800W motor and a 4.8litre bowl capacity, enough to make up to 2kg of cake batter or 2.6kg of pastry. You can register for a 3 year manufacturer’s guarantee and a 5 year assistance warranty.
How we test stand mixers
When assessing whether a food mixer is worthy of standing pride of place on your kitchen worktop, we look at five key points. First, how attractive and well-designed it is – your typical stand mixer is too big to constantly shift it in and out of a cupboard, so it needs to look great as part of your kitchen furniture.
Secondly, how easy it is to use. Are there loads of confusing controls and fiddly parts, or is it simple and instinctive and are the instructions any good? Next, we assess it how effectively it performs – are there adequate settings for making a variety of foods and are those settings up to the job. Do the included attachments function as they should, and how does the food mixer compare not only to other mixers like it, but also to baking by hand.
Which takes us logically onto the results: is the food that comes out of the oven evenly mixed, properly risen, appealing to look and most importantly, delicious? Finally, the clean-up – how easy is the machine and its attachments to clean, whether in the sink or the dishwasher, how sturdy or flimsy are the parts and how fuss-free to maintain.
To properly appreciate how well the SMEG food mixer performed in each area I kept out on my counter for several weeks, using it to beat eggs, make brownie batter and to knead dough, experimenting with each of the included attachments in the process and giving a score out of 10 for each metric.
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Design and appearance: 9 out of 10
When I think of SMEG, in my mind’s eye I see the Italian brand’s 50s style fridge – something I wanted since my teens. Is it strange for a teenager to dream of her future fridge? Perhaps. As an adult, I ended up choosing an integrated fridge anyway, deciding that a retro fridge would be ‘a bit much’.
What is not a bit much is the SMEG stand mixer. It’s stunning. The mixer’s vintage style is classic rather than overblown, and it looks like a machine that’s been around for decades. Although other brands do offer even more colourways, the six SMEG shades available cover the bases well (black, white, red, cream, pastel green and pastel blue) and the stainless steel bowl and trims can’t be faulted.
Thank goodness, because the only downside is storing it away. It’s heavy, at just under 9kg, and would take up almost the entirety of your average under-counter cupboard. Luckily, it’s an asset kept out on the counter. But if you’re in any way tight for space or don’t bake frequently, one of their hand mixers might be a better choice. Although you can store the attachments inside the bowl, the same is not true of the plastic pouring shield, so you might want to find some drawer space for that.
Usability: 10 out of 10
Having never used a SMEG mixer before, within 10 minutes of opening the packaging and plugging in the machine, I was whipping up a successful batch of brownies. The instruction manual is detailed yet simple and to the point, and a stand mixer ‘quick guide’ is included showing which speeds to use with which attachments – and what their functions are – along with a clutch of recipe cards specifically for use with the mixer.
All of the attachments affix to the mixer head in the same way, requiring an easy press and twist to go on, and a twist and pull to remove. The bowl locks in with a simple rotation from left to right, and the head of the mixer can be lifted with the press of a button. This is better than some other mixers, which have a switch to lift the head, making you more likely to knock or flick it accidentally during use – with the SMEG, that’s impossible.
As mentioned before, this is a heavy bit of kit, which may not make it easy to shuffle around the kitchen but does make it incredibly sturdy when in use. Together with its anti-slip feet, the food mixer does not judder a bit, even when mixing batter at its top speed of 10.
Talking of which, the speed dial moves super-smoothly from one through to ten, making any adjustments while mixing quick and free of drama. It also has a ‘soft start’ feature, gradually stepping up its speed rather than going at full-pelt the second you switch it on – so you avoid any splashing of batter up the wall or plumes of icing sugar floating across the kitchen.
Performance: 9 out of 10
This is where a stand mixer truly shows it mettle. What would take me five or ten minutes by hand is done by the SMEG mixer in one, hands-free, making preparation virtually effortless. And in that one minute, I can pop the flour and eggs back in the cupboard or chuck a bowl and wooden spoon into the dishwasher.
The mixer comes with four attachments: a stainless steel whisk, a flat aluminium beater (which looks like a pretzel), an aluminium and silicone flex edge beater (which looks like an anchor), and aluminium dough hook.
Each attachment is to be used at a certain speed – for example, SMEG advise you don’t run the dough hook at faster than a two, which means pasta dough takes around five minutes to knead. Only about twice as fast as doing it by hand, but a thousand times easier on the hands. Users of other machines such as the Kitchen Aid indicate that their machines combine ingredients somewhat quicker, but the SMEG is still fast – and unless you are competing on Bake Off, extreme speed is not really of the essence.
The mixer uses a ‘planetary’ action for effective mixing – the beater moves around the bowl in one direction, while whisking in the opposite direction. This is said to give more consistent results and I believe it, although when folding the cocoa and flour into the egg and sugar mixture for brownies, I used the flat beater and did, towards the end of the mixing process, feel compelled to scrape down the sides as a very small ridge of unmixed flour did build up – this was less of a problem when using the flex edge accessory. It’s not a terribly quiet machine, but the noise isn’t offensive.
Results: 10 out of 10
Once you’re used to cooking with the SMEG stand mixer, you simply wouldn’t be without it for kneading dough or whisking egg whites, in particular. The results were excellent – the only issues were very much my own fault (my cupcakes were slightly underdone, my brownies slightly overbaked). The consistency of the mixtures made was perfect – my egg whites fluffy, my brownie batter glossy and gooey, my pasta the texture of play-dough.
It is not to say you can’t create the same results by hand, or using an electric hand-held mixer. You can, but it takes an awful lot more effort. Another note here regarding the speed: despite being quite a distracted chef, I didn’t end up with a situation where at any point my mixtures became over-beaten, which could easily happen if you take your eye off the ball. So perhaps the fact that the SMEG is slightly slower than some other models is actually to its advantage.
Cleaning: 9 out of 10
Cleaning the SMEG is a whizz. The attachments click out easily, and most of the attachments are dishwasher safe, so I pop them straight in. The whisk and splatter shield are hand wash only, though, which is quite surprising: one is solely stainless steel, the other clear plastic, so I would have assumed they’d be fine to put in the dishwasher. Luckily, I read the instruction manual. I washed them by hand, with some soapy water.
As for the machine itself – a wipe with a soft cloth and it’s sparkling, although a little extra attention is required for the stainless steel bowl, which needs a quick polish after washing to remove watermarks and avoid collecting fingerprints.
Technical specifications
Telegraph verdict: 9 out of 10
It’s hard to fault this mixer, although of course, we’ve tried. Very attractive and sturdily built, the SMEG mixer is a hefty piece of culinary eye candy that looks great in the kitchen and performs fantastically.
In terms of price, it’s very much in line with similar offerings on the market and just has the edge in terms of appearance – its closest competitor is probably the KitchenAid Artisan, which comes with slightly fewer accessories included but, for the keen chef, has a great many more additional attachments available to buy separately.
And while it is an investment at just under £500, there are good deals to be found if you shop around. Easy to use, extremely effective at producing delicious results, the only area in which the SMEG loses any points is in the fact that it takes up a lot of space and spends slightly longer mixing than some other models on the market.
SMEG stand mixer FAQ
What attachments come with the SMEG Stand Mixer?
The SMF03 SMEG stand mixer has a great selection of attachments included – a dough hook for bread, pasta and pizza doughs, a flat beater for all sorts of batters and pastries, a flex edge beater for softer doughs and batters, and a wire whisk whipping butter, eggs and cream, as well as a pouring shield to help avoid and splatter when adding ingredients while the mixer is in motion. The flex edge beater is an extra not included with most other brands on the market, although the Kitchen Aid, for example, has its own version available separately.
Does the SMEG Stand Mixer have variable speed settings?
Yes, it has 10 speed settings. Settings 1 to 2 are for kneading, 1 to 3 for combining ingredients, 4 to 7 for mixing and beating, and 8 to 10 for whipping and whisking. The speed selector itself is on the top of the machine and has a little key indicating which attachments are best suited to which speeds.
How powerful is the motor on the SMEG Stand Mixer?
At 800W, the SMEG stand mixer’s motor is one of the more powerful in a very varied field.
What is the capacity of the SMEG Stand Mixer bowl?
The stainless steel bowl holds 4.8 litres. This is equivalent to safely making 2kg of cake batter or 2.6kg of pastry. However, there is also a minimum capacity. The mixer won’t be able to whip fewer than two egg whites or 100ml of cream, so if you make very small batches, you’ll have to do this by hand.
