Disaster - The Kitchen Aid is Broken ... Again!

I love my Kitchen Aid, as you can probably tell as it graces the front cover of my web-page. I bought it a couple of years ago and adore it. It is beautiful to look at and it makes baking cakes and bread a doddle, especially as I am not very patient and never beat or knead things long enough if I have to do it by hand. 

I first broke my Kitchen Aid 5 months after I bought it. I was trying to make croissants from the Bourke Street Bakery Book and the mix was too big for the capacity of the bowl and it ground to a halt. I was devastated, but Mike came to the rescue. He likes machinery in the same way I like cooking and after researching the problem on the internet we discovered that the worm gear, which is designed to fail in case of overload, had gone and a replacement was ordered and the machine was duly fixed.

The 2nd time my machine broke it was not my fault ... honest! The machine just ground to a halt when I was baking bread and when Mike took it apart the grove pin in the worm gear assembly had worked itself free. Interestingly this is in the same bracket where we replaced the worm gear on the first occasion. Fortunately Mike is getting to be a dab hand at taking it apart and fixing it.

Now it has broken again ... and it is still not my fault! It is the same problem as the last time and the groove pin has worked it's way out again. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures but it's a small little sucker but the KA won't work without it and the force of the machinery hitting it when it came out has caused it to bend. Mike has fixed it again at the princely sum of £6.99 plus P&P and if this part fails again we will have to replace the whole worm gear assembly as there must be a slight fault in it - hey ho!

The good news is it is now fixed and I have promised to make Mike a cherry cake to celebrate. It is a recipe I found on the internet and is from Delia Smith's book of cakes. The KA makes it a breeze to make and I omit the almond essence as Mike finds it a bit overpowering if included. I ice mine with plain water icing which is, I believe, a Scottish variant. 

It is great to be baking again, after a week off I'm getting withdrawal symptoms.