Kitchen Appliances

Ankarsrum Assistent Original stand mixer review: Kneadful things

The Ankarsrum Assistent Original is an exceptionally well-built kitchen appliance that makes mixing and kneading dough an effortless endeavour.

Nick Broughall

22 May 2025 — 7 min read

Pros

Incredible build quality
Versatile mixer, with optional accessories
Powerful motor with few moving parts

Cons

Cookbook needs more recipes
It is expensive

Check Price @ Ankarsrum

One of my favourite things since I launched BTTR is stepping out of my comfort zone when it comes to product reviews.

I’ve been testing tech and writing about it professionally since the early 2000s. But since I started BTTR, I’ve been able to branch out, testing things like pressure cookers, electric toothbrushes and budgeting apps.

The latest device on this rollercoaster of new experiences is the Ankarsrum Assistent Original stand mixer. It is the first stand mixer I have ever used.

That means if you’re an experienced baker looking for a comparison between this and something like a KitchenAid mixer, I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to help you.

All I can do with this review is to outline my experience. And what I can tell you, from baking every weekend for the past month, is that the Ankarsrum is an exceptionally well-built machine with a powerful motor and potential far beyond what an amateur home cook like myself can manage.

Let’s get into the review.

What is the Ankarsrum Assistent Original offering?

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Ankarsrum is a Swedish company that has been around for 75 years for so. But its arrival in Australia is new, as the company tries to carve out a presence here.

As a brand, from what I can tell, Ankarsrum is a one-product business. It makes the Assistent Original, and a range of accessories for the mixer, but that’s about it.

Which means over the past 75 years, you expect the company has refined and polished the product to be as close to perfect as it can be, right? If they aren’t making different product ranges, they have to be iterating and improving.

The mixer houses a 1500W motor in its base, which is designed to have just five moving parts. This allows for the mixer to be fairly quiet while working, as well as super-stable so it won’t tip over or go spinning around the kitchen.

The main bowl is a huge 7L stainless-steel bowl that can knead as much as 5 kg of bread dough at a time. For those who don’t make bread, that’s a lot of dough – enough for 150 bread rolls, according to Ankarsrum. I didn’t make that much to test it, I’m afraid.

While the stainless-steel bowl is great for bread dough, there’s also a clear plastic bowl in the box which is used for more delicate mixing, like cakes and icings.

Dough resting in the stainless steel mixing bowl.

The Assistent Original comes with both bowls, and a dough knife, a dough roller, a dough hook, a pair of balloon whisks and a pair of cookie whisks. There’s a hardcover cookbook in the box to get you started, plus a lid that sits perfectly in the bowls to cover and let your dough rise.

But where things get interesting – though I couldn’t test it – is in the accessories. The Assistent is designed to be tipped onto its side, and you can attach a range of accessories to help with a number of extra home cooking tasks.

That means things like mincing your own meat, peeling and slicing vegetables, making ice cream, cutting pasta, grinding coffee beans or grains to make your own flour, and pressing your own citrus. If you’re keen, there’s even a blender attachment.

While there is definitely a premium price tag attached to these accessories, the versatility makes the Assistent Original an enticing, if expensive, kitchen appliance.

The side of the Ankarsrum Assistent Original

What does the Ankarsrum Assistent Original do well?

Before I start talking about performance, I want to talk about just how solid this thing is.

The Assistent Original is large and hefty. It weighs in at 13 kg, and will take up a fair amount of bench space. It’s available in 16 colours and three finishes (matte, metallic and shiny), so you can choose a colour and finish that matches your kitchen.

But the point I want to make is that this feels extremely well-made. Even compared to other solid kitchen appliances I loved, like the Ninja NeverClog juicer, this next-level on the build quality.

That design also comes across to usability. There are two dials on the unit – the left turns the mixer on and rotates around to act as a timer. The right dial adjusts the speed at which the mixing bowl rotates.

Depending on what you are mixing, things go together effortlessly too. When making bread, the stainless-steel bowl slots in; the bread knife sits in a hole that places it against the inside of the bowl; and the mixer’s arm pulls in to attach the dough roller against the inside of the bowl, making it rotate as the bowl spins.

If you’re using the dough hook, it slots into a dedicated hole, and locked in place by the machine’s arm.

Whisking in the beater bowl is a bit different. An arm is attached to the rotating hole on the base of the unit, and the whisks are connected to a unit that spins them around the inside of the bowl as well as their axis. It’s like the moon circling the earth as it goes around the sun.

No matter what you’re mixing, it is completely mesmerising to watch. I had no idea how well the dough roller or the dough hook would work, but both did a fantastic job kneading the dough for a couple of different recipes.

Over the course of my review I made hamburger buns, toast bread, baguettes and Swedish cinnamon buns, which were honestly some of the best tasting food I think I have ever made.

The only misstep came with the hamburger buns – my first time using the machine – where I killed the yeast by using milk that was probably a bit too hot. They didn’t rise like they should have, though I don’t think I can place too much blame on the mixer for that.

Some of the things I made with the Ankarsrum mixer

What could the Ankarsrum Assistent Original improve?

This may not be an issue for people who know what they are doing in the kitchen without a carefully documented set of instructions, but I wanted more recipes.

The cookbook has 34 recipes, but 20 of those are showcasing things you can make with accessories. Given I didn’t have any of the accessories, more than half of the cookbook wasn’t overly useful.

Beyond that, I was impressed with what the Ankarsrum could do. As I said at the start, I can’t compare it to a standard stand mixer from the likes of KitchenAid, but from a design and performance perspective, I was impressed with the Assistent Original.

Close up of the controls on the Ankarsrum Assistent Original

Verdict

The Ankarsrum Assistent Original has launched in Australia in a range of 16 colours and three finishes for an RRP of $1,395.

That’s a lot of money for a fairly niche product. Especially if you decide you want to invest in the accessories as well.

So obviously, you would want to already be doing a lot of baking and cooking to get the value from this product. It’s not a “buy the best in the hopes we’ll do more cooking” type of purchase (unless you’re overly wealthy, in which case you should upgrade your membership here).

But despite the high price tag, nothing about this product – from my experience over the past month – suggests that it’s not worth it. The Ankarsrum looks stylish, is remarkably well-built, and does a fantastic job of mixing, whether kneading bread dough or creating icing for cinnamon scrolls.

Do you need one? Maybe not. But do you knead one?

Probably.