There are certain household products that require a serious financial investment: a good vacuum, a Le Creuset Dutch oven, and of course, a stand mixer. A KitchenAid stand mixer is as much a baking holy grail as it is a status symbol. And if you’re willing to splurge on one of their many attachments, even those will set you back nearly $100.
Stand mixers may be expensive, but they’re popular for a reason. Anybody who disagrees hasn’t kneaded bread dough by hand or laboriously whisked egg whites into stiff peaks. It makes any baking project come together in half the time while barely having to lift a finger.
However, a recent viral TikTok promises all of the ease of a stand mixer without having to pay stand-mixer prices. All you need to execute this hack is an electric hand mixer and a wire baking rack. In the TikTok, the wire rack acts as a frame to hold the base of the hand mixer in place. So, in theory, all you need to do is place the modified mixer on top of a bowl and walk away.
Beyond costing significantly less than a stand mixer (you can buy a hand mixer online for $20-30), this hack also frees up a lot of storage. Stand mixers are heavy, bulky, and impractical in small kitchens. A hand mixer and wire rack, on the other hand, take up a fraction on the space.
This hack is so wild that it seems nearly too good to be true. So I decided to put it to the test and see if the TikTok-viral hand mixer hack can actually replace a KitchenAid.
I’ll go straight to the point: it can’t. The idea is great in theory but seriously falls flat in practice. Firstly, the TikTok fails to mention that anything thicker than heavy cream will cause the hand mixer to shake and jolt around. And the makeshift wire frame is definitely not secure enough to hold the mixer in place. My bowl of egg yolks and sugar was on the verge of falling over and spilling everywhere within moments of me letting go.
Another major flaw with this hack: the beaters are far too small to evenly whip the entire bowl. When using a hand mixer as designed, you have the ability to reach every corner of your bowl. But you can’t feasibly whisk things evenly with the tiny beaters held in place.
I’ll admit that I really wanted this hack to work. But I’m sad to report that this hack does a hack job. You’re better off just using a hand mixer the normal way.
