Another New Family Member...

I am now the proud owner of a KitchenAid Professional 600 stand mixer. Ironically enough, according to the manual, the Professional 600 is intended only for home use. For me this is no problem, as I merely dabble in the culinary arts; I do not intend to gain any sort of monetary compensation as a result of my baking. I think they named it "Professional" due to the industrial noise level created by the all-metal gears. When it is working, you know it--small children everywhere will come running when I bake cookies.

The Cat Daddy found this particular mixer via KitchenAid's webpage of refurbished items. Refurbs usually include items that have been returned for minor repairs (plastic gears, for example). KitchenAid might send out a new mixer for expediency, and then repair the broken one. So then they have a perfectly functioning mixer that they cannot sell as new, so they give it a 6 month limited warranty and slash the price. Excellent deals to be found, those refurbs.

To the right of the mixer is my second attempt at divinity. My first attempt, as you may recall, ended tragically in the death of the best electric hand mixer in history, and resulted in a big bowl of marshmallow cream. Divinity, however, has a different consistency than marshmallow cream; more along the line of whipped drywall mud. For a first-ish attempt it turned out great--most definitely edible--but I thought it was still a little too marshmallowy. So from here I can test & tweak, and maybe figure out how to make it look better than little scoops of joint compound while I'm at it...