Need an affordable stand mixer for baking cakes? We tried the Breville HeatSoft stand mixer

The Breville HeatSoft VFM029 is a lightweight device that can be used as a handheld mixer and a stand mixer, making it a pretty versatile machine for home bakers.

Unique to the brand is its HeatSoft technology – think of it as a hair dryer that heats up and softens the butter as it mixes. It’s designed as an antidote for all those recipes that call for room temperature butter when yours is in the fridge.

Cake is the most obvious recipe to try but we also whipped up cream and tested out the dough hook to see if they’re any good, and to ultimately establish if this product is worthy of a spot in our guide to the best stand mixers. 

Breville HeatSoft Stand Mixer product specs 

• Type: 2-in-1 handheld and stand mixer
• Dimensions: 428 x 314 x 268 mm
• Weight: 4.4kg
• Power: 400 watts
• Speeds: seven
• Bowl capacity: 3.7L
• Colour: white with rose gold accents
• Material: plastic base, stainless steel fixtures

Qin Xie

Qin Xie is a freelance journalist based in London specialising in all things food and travel. Having trained as a chef, she now regularly uses her skills to put different kitchen gadgets to the test. 

She travels a lot and lives in a small flat so appliances that will save time and space are particularly important. Her own stand mixer is frequently tasked with making pizza dough but she’s made batches of meringues, trays of cakes and loaf upon loaves of bread while testing mixers from all the well known brands.

For this review, she spent a couple of days trying out different recipes and compared the results to other devices she’s tested in the past. She also had the option to keep the stand mixer for future testing.

Unboxing the Breville HeatSoft stand mixer 

The Breville HeatSoft VFM029 comes in a big cardboard box, with everything individually wrapped, including the instruction manual. The packaging was a bit of an overkill but at least everything could be recycled.

It’s a 2-in-1 set up: a 3.7L mixing bowl and base transform what’s essentially a 400-watt handheld mixer into a stand mixer.

In terms of accessories, you get two beaters, a wire whisk and two dough hooks, which all slot into the handheld device and can be released at the touch of a button.

Having tested other Breville HeatSoft products in the past, I was a little bit disappointed by the look and feel of this one – the base was very light and felt quite flimsy. And compared to the big name brands, this compact machine didn’t quite have the same countertop appeal.

Making bread using the dough hooks 

I tried the basic bread dough recipe that came with the machine first. It uses 500g of strong bread flour – enough for a small loaf or, in my case, a decent sized focaccia. Like more traditional stand mixers, this device has an attachment arm that you can raise, which makes installing the dough hooks and mixing bowl during use fairly easy.

And once the device is switched on, the bowl rotates as well as the dough hooks, helping the flour and water to combine more quickly than other mixers I’ve tried in the past. However, the device didn’t really knead the dough – the hooks merely cut through the mixture as the bowl rotated.

After 10 minutes, the dough looked more like whipped cream than a well formed ball, and there was a small trail of flour that wasn’t mixed in. I ended up having to finish the process by hand. While cleaning up afterwards, I also noticed that some of the dough had wrapped itself up the dough hook towards the motor, which I felt was a design flaw.

The one good thing I found was that the machine was actually pretty sturdy. Despite the fact that the base felt flimsy, it didn’t move at all on the counter. Because of this, the machine was surprisingly quiet – the sound level averaged in the mid 50s dBA.

Making a cake using the beaters 

I tried the Victoria sponge recipe that came with the machine next. The butter I used was chilled straight from the fridge and cut into sizable chunks – but these quickly softened with the heater on, allowing the beaters to cream in the sugar with ease.

Breville says that its HeatSoft technology creates fluffier cakes. During my testing, I didn’t see a noticeable difference compared to other handheld devices I’ve tried in the past. However, I did enjoy the fact that you could bake straight from chilled.

I also liked the stand mixer setup; it allowed me to gradually add ingredients without having to set down the handheld mixer – a feature that definitely saved me time. Unlike the bread dough, all of the ingredients were fully incorporated and within minutes, with the rotating bowl speeding up the process.

The SwivelScrape feature, where the attachment arm “swings” sideways into the centre of the mixing bowl, ensured that nothing was missed.

Making whipped cream using the whisk 

To finish the cake, I made a simple whipped cream filling using the whisk attachment. For this test, I used my usual mixing bowl, rather than the one supplied, and had the device on handheld mode.

The whisk wasn’t as sturdy as my usual whisk but it was surprisingly efficient – the cream went from liquid to soft peaks in just over a minute.

However, it did have a tendency to fling the cream out of the bowl, which made a bit of a mess in the kitchen. This was despite the fact that I started the whisk on speed two, and only moved up to the maximum of seven when the cream was already coming together.

How does it compare to similar models and its predecessors? 

Handheld mixers with dough hooks are never quite as good as traditional stand mixers when it comes to bread dough.

This is because traditional stand mixers generally have one large dough hook that moves in a planetary motion, mimicking hand kneading.

The dough hooks on handheld mixers work more like cork screws that rip through the dough so although it’ll combine all the ingredients, it won’t actually knead the dough.

The Breville HeatSoft VFM029 is no exception – it might help you combine the ingredients more quickly but you’ll still need to finish kneading by hand.

I also think the Breville HeatSoft VFM029 isn’t as stylish as other brands, including the handheld device in the same line, the Breville HeatSoft VFM021 hand mixer, which comes with a handy storage caddy.

Compared to other devices, this one does have two great features: the heating fan that allows you to bake whenever you want and the swing feature on the attachment arm that ensures every corner of the bowl is covered by the mixer.

Should you buy the Breville HeatSoft VFM029 2-in-1 hand and stand mixer?

The Breville HeatSoft VFM029 is a budget-friendly and compact device, which makes it a good choice for those short on money, time and/or space. Having a stand mixer base is handy for those who might have mobility issues and have trouble holding up the handheld mixer for longer periods of time.

I think it’s best for cake bakers rather than breadmakers though. Aside from the fact that it’s not very good at kneading dough, the smaller capacity means you’d be limited as to the type of bread recipe you can try.