Beaters and gelatin

[jethrien]

Our hand-held mixer died again a bit back, and we went to get a new one. (Side note: no, I don't want a stand mixer. They're too big, I have nowhere to put it, and the bowl size is really limiting. I have my own collection of bowls, thank you, of assorted sizes and materials appropriate to a wide variety of tasks and I have little interest in getting locked into the bowl that comes with the stand.) Anyway, it appears the style now is for the whisk beater to only come with a single beater instead of two. We went to three stores. All of the mixers on sale had two standard beaters and one whisk. Why?

I just whipped egg whites with the one beater for the first time. This is incredibly stupid. Seriously, it took me like 20 minutes to beat the damn eggs to hard peak. Way, way longer than with two beaters, which would make sense. So what the hell is with the one beater? Why does anyone want this? Is there some advantage I'm missing?

In other news, I continue to struggle with gelatin. Somehow, I just do not have an instinct for this stuff, and it's very disorienting. As a combination of this and the fact the eggs took longer than expected, I over-solidified the mixture that was supposed to get added to the eggs. (I'm making a lime chiffon pie.) It was supposed to fall off a spoon in mounds. Instead, it completely solidified. Oops. I managed to loosen it up enough to fold in with liberal applications of beaters, tequila, and some of the beaten egg whites, but the gelatin bonds have already set and aren't going to help at all with the structural integrity of my pie. I'm sure it will still be delicious, but this is going to be impossible to slice. Ah well.

Comments

[firynze.livejournal.com]

I admit I sort of want a stand mixer, but I'm not going to have one for a long, long time. No place to put the behemoth.

You know, I think I've only ever seen the one-whisk hand mixer models. I've never seen one with two whisks. Then again, I'm so used to having a mixer that doesn't have anything other than standard eggbeaters that...well, I just use those for everything. Including beating egg whites. *shrug*

Liberal application of tequila helps MANY things. ;-)

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

That is nuts. Can you try the Internets? I happily got a cheap handheld mixer from Target when I moved to Atlanta and it has served me well. Yes, it has two beaters.

I am secretly pleased that you do not have a stand mixer because I have been looking for reasons not to buy one. I keep making "stand mixer required" recipes that work out just fine anyway.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

We've got a bread machine, so the ones that require enormous amounts of kneading with a paddle are covered. Really, there's just one cookie recipe that requires something like 15 minutes of beating with a powerful motor that I'm not willing to try.