Bang For A Buck #2: The Extra Mixing Bowl

Hello! I've rarely used my hand-held electric mixer since my husband got me a Kitchen Aid stand mixer for a birthday present several years ago. Still, I've kept it because there's times when having a second mixer is handy - namely for those recipes that call for egg whites and egg yolks to be beaten separately. 

One such recipe happens to be an important one - a cake my husband requests every year for his birthday. I'd whip the egg whites to stiff peaks with the power of the Kitchen Aid stand mixer, then beat the egg yolks until they were thickened with my hand-held mixer in a different bowl.

All was fine until the hand-held mixer began to sputter. It still works but seems to have lost the highest speed or whatever. It took longer to beat the egg yolks to the proper consistency, but I was reluctant to do anything to improve the situation, such as buying a new hand-held mixer or buying another bowl for the stand mixer. After all, I didn't really bake many things that called for egg separating (a laziness about the extra work involved, I admit!).

Then last summer I happened upon a nearby garage sale, and lo and behold, a very nice lady was selling a Kitchen Aid stand mixer bowl for one dollar. I snapped it up, knowing that she could have asked more for it. Thrift stores would have likely charged at least five dollars for it, if not more.

I now use it more than the bowl that had come with my stand mixer, for my "new" bowl has a handle and that makes it easier to move and carry around. The other bowl doesn't have a handle.

Here's the bowl in action earlier today:

(that's masa dough for tamales in the bowl; the Kitchen Aid stand mixer did a nice job on it!)

Oh, and remember when I said the garage sale lady could have asked more for this bowl? If ordered from Kitchen Aid's website, it would have cost $49.99 (shipping costs not included).

Granted, my bowl isn't brand new, but it's in fine shape. I know I could find a like-new bowl online, but I'm sure the asking price would be considerably more than a measly dollar - and shipping fees would likely be charged as well. 

Is it any wonder that I was delighted with my bang-for-a-buck mixing bowl? Now I can delight my husband for years to come with his favorite cake on his birthdays - and who knows, maybe I'll now seek out more recipes that call for separating the egg whites from the yolks first.