Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker stand mixer review

The Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker stand mixer comes from Kenwood, the brand that currently sits at the top of our best stand mixer guide, but can the Titanium Chef Baker live up to its legacy? I think so, and more. 

Cashing in at a £499 RRP, the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker stand mixer review is one of the most expensive stand mixers I have ever used. It has a 1200 watt motor (for comparison, the KitchenAid Artisan has 300) and all of its attachments can go in the dishwasher. Although not included, you can buy attachments to blend, or even make pasta, which sit either on the top attachment port or out in front of the mixer. These work with the in-built scales and timer, so you can enjoy the benefits of the Chef Baker with more than just mixing.

Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker

Product specs:

Size: ‎53 x 44.5 x 35 cm
Power: 1200 watts
Bowl capacity: 5 litres
Speeds: Ten
Colours available: White (with different colour pop-top cover options to customise)
Cleaning: Bowls and attachments are machine washable

What’s in the box?

Included with the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker is a stainless steel whisk, a dough tool, the classic K-beater, a five litre stainless steel bowl, and a splash guard that attaches to the tilt-head of the mixer.

The mixer itself has a removable pop-top cover, and you can replace this on the Kenwood website with any other colour you could want: pink, sage, blue, purple, and more.

Like the Kenwood kMix stand mixer, the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker has five litres of bowl capacity. In the latest lineup from Kenwood's stand mixer range the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker is the lowest-cost option, and the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker XL will come with a seven-litre bowl for larger bakes.

The next model up also has a Nesting DuoBowl which will deliver two bowls instead of one: perfect for cooking cake and making the icing on the same day without having to wash the bowl between bakes. I stuck to the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker for this review, but the XL is a great choice for those who have £100 more to spend.

What is the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker like to use?

In short, it's a delight to use. The dial has ten speed options to choose from, which is more than most stand mixers, and a delayed start will prevent any serious clouds of flour from leaving your mixing bowl.

I tasked the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker with the most important cake of the year: my birthday cake. This meant the bowl was very full indeed with enough cake mixture to make three layers of chocolatey goodness, and the mixer held up well under the pressure.

The Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker is the only stand mixer I have used which has in-built scales, and they are a complete game-changer. No need to break out the scales and bowl-upon-bowl to line up the various flours, sugars, butter and cocoa powders needed to make a cake: simply pour (carefully!) into the bowl after setting the scale into the right mode for you, and start mixing. The scales are very accurate, too, so precise recipes can still be executed perfectly.

Lifting the tilt-head is easy too. Kenwood's LightLift allows you to press the button at the back of the mixer and lightly press upwards at the front. It's assisted, so you won't have to force the head into an upright position. That's ideal for those with messy hands, or if you struggle to lift heavy things, it will also make life a lot easier.

I really enjoyed the flat beater with this mixer, which I used to make a fluffy coffee buttercream for my mocha cake. I've yet to try a stand mixer that leaves absolutely no butter or sugar at the bottom of the bowl, but I didn't have to break out the spatula too often to make sure everything was mixing properly. If you hate to do this, Kenwood also sells a silicone-coated flat beater to get to every corner of the bowl.

When making icing in the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker my kitchen did get a little messy. There is a slight gap between the splash guard and the top of the bowl, which was enough for some of my icing sugar to escape from the inside of the bowl and into the air.

Making bread in the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker

If you know your bread recipe by heart, the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker will make the process even easier. Simply switch on the scales and measure out your flour (for me that's 500g) before adding the yeast, salt, sugar, olive oil and anything else your heart desires to the bowl, then start combining. The timer starts automatically, and you can lift up the lid of the splash guard and start to pour in your water as it mixes.

I tend to knead my bread for ten minutes initially, after which point I leave it in the bowl to rise for an hour. The timer makes this nice and easy, I was able to go into my lounge and come back to check how much longer was left for kneading.

Because it was a large loaf, the mixer did rattle a bit. This is very normal with any stand mixer, but I left it on a low speed to be on the safe side. Thankfully, I was not worried that it would jump around my kitchen and potentially cause some damage, so I felt confident leaving it to knead unattended.

The noise the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker makes is quite mechanical, but subdued for a mixer. The bread didn't get knotted onto the dough hook, but the attachment has a useful flat panel at the top that would prevent the bread from working its way up the hook.

Cleaning the mixer

After making a delicious batch of bread it was time to clean all three attachments and the bowl. Luckily, all three can go in the dishwasher, which is unusual for a stand mixer. A lot of wire whisks need to be cleaned by hand, which is a task so tedious that I sometimes opt for a flat beater to avoid it in my own mixer.

The exterior of the bowl does mark very easily, and another thing to note is that it doesn't have a handle. On the one hand, this takes up less space, but on the other, it makes pouring from the bowl a bit trickier. For an expensive mixer, I'd prefer for it to come with a handle as standard.

Should you buy the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker?

There's no denying that the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker is an expensive stand mixer, retailing at an RRP of £499. If you're hoping to get your hands on something powerful and sleek though, it's about as modern and high-tech as any stand mixer on the market. The in-built scales are so helpful in cutting down the amount of washing up you'll need to do when baking, and the LightLift tilt-head makes the mixer accessible to those who worry about lifting a hefty mixer head.

I also really enjoyed the timer on the LCD panel below the mixer, which made timed tasks like kneading a lot less hassle. Pair that with the option of a blender attachment, and even a pasta roller, and this multi-tasker will sit in the pride of place in any kitchen. It's a shame that it only comes in white, but the fact that you can change the top panel to customise the colour somewhat makes up for this. If you've got the budget, this is an easy five-star mixer, otherwise, take a look at our Kenwood Prospero KHC29 Stand Mixer review for a lower-cost Kenwood mixer.

About this review, and our reviewer

Millie Fender heads up all things small appliances at Ideal Home. There’s nothing she loves more than testing out the latest and greatest cooking gadgets, for indoor and outdoor use, from toasters to air fryers. Millie lives in South London and is constantly squeezing more appliances into her modest kitchen. If it makes it onto the kitchen counters full time, you know an appliance is worth the hype.

Kenwood loaned Millie the Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker for the purposes of this review, and she got to try it out for a whole month before returning it.