Customer Reviews

Bosch Universal Plus Kitchen Machine

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well, I must be missing something the other reviewers aren't. I used this machine to make my huge batch of cookie dough. As usual, I made a monumental mess. NOT the machine's fault, I make a mess of everything in the kitchen. But this machine handled the mixing so easily I couldn't believe it. My Heavy Duty Kitchen Aid was a huge hassle, with the dough always climing up and getting everywhere, plus it was hard to add ingredients. At least with the Bosch, all I had to wipe up were dry spills caused by me, not dough flung everywhere. For those of you who complained about food getting in the gears, try standing on you head to clean the gears on the underside of the Kitchen Aid. Or better yet, try throwing it in the dishwasher. Geez!! Now that machine was hard to clean! To be honest, most of the mess from the Bosch was caused by me turning it on with only dry ingredients and no top on the unit. I thought it would just slowly stir on low speed, like the Kitchen Aid, but it doesn't seem to do slow, and dry stuff flew everywhere. Beware. Always use the top. 8-)

But after all was done, I just put everything in the dishwasher, and it was all clean. What am I missing? Everything was perfect. The Kitchen Aid goes to the storeroom. I'm in love. I had bought cookie paddles, but couldn't find them when it was time to make cookies. So I used the dough hook, and it worked perfectly. That thing is massive, and gets everything mixed perfectly.

I consider myself an excellent critic of kitchen equipment, because in the kitchen I am sloppy, lazy and impatient (hey-know thyself). If something works well for me, it is because it does the job quickly, easily and well. The open top is a blessing in itself. Since I never measure anything, and dump it in right from the packaging, the open top is much less likely to cause spills than trying to fit the package opening into the Kitchen Aid.

This mixer is powerful. You have the main unit where you attach your bowl, and a secondary unit where you can attach a blender.

There are many, many accessories you can buy for this unit. Be sure if you buy accessories you buy for the correct unit as accessories for this model are NOT interchangeable with Bosch's previous all-in-one machine! I've already had to return one attachment because I made this mistake. Look for accessories that have a model number starting with MUZ6!

This machine tears up just about any food you throw at it. When you turn it on you can get the feel for the full 800 watts of power it is capable of by it's roaring sound. You may need to run to your circuit breakers to find a suitable plug for the unit, since 800watts is just about the limit most circuit breakers can take. It's doubtful you can run this unit along with another kitchen appliance at the same time in the same receptacle.

Cleanup is not fun, not fun at all. I did not like the design of the bowl in this aspect. There are plenty of crooks and crevices that dough gets in that take some scrubbing to get out. Also, the top/center of the bowl serves as the "gears" for some of your accessories, but when not using them, they catch quite a bit of food in them, and it is difficult to clean.

While on the subject of the bowl, other than cleanup, it's an awesome design. There is a removable splash guard around the rim that allows you to add flour to a recipe, while the unit is running without making a mess. You also have another lid that fits into the splash guard for the bowl to cover it should you need to rise dough.

My unit came with the blender, so I'll review it here as well. The blender is wonderful too. I can actually grind my own wheat in it for pancakes and cleanup is a snap. Also the design of the blades is ingenious as one blade is actually pointed downward toward the base to clear shop where most blenders don't touch. One problem I did have was with the blades and how they attach to the blender. They are removable, but when you put them back you need to really make sure that you tighten it well. If they are not tight enough, your blended battery goo will fall down into the crevices of the machine, which could possibly damage it. There are unfortunately small holes where this could easily occur. Unfortunately when you tighten the blades down, it's really difficult to get them untightened (Believe me, I'm a man, it's hard!). I end up having to get a pair of pliers and using them backwards (grip handles on the device) to get the blades out.

Another issue with the blender that has to potential to drive me nuts is the small removable top (not the main blender top, but the small plastic piece you can remove to stuff food down). There is a hole in it! Not large, probably about 1/4 inch, but it's still large enough that if you blend just right your stuff will come out of the blender. There is absolutely nothing you can do about this, shy of sticking your finger, a napkin or paper towel down it while blending. Bosch wanted this to act more like a drip funnel, but I just don't get the point of having a hole here.

Hands down, this is a great unit, and Bosch has a known reputation of creating kitchen units that last for years, even decades! I would definitely recommend this one to anyone serious about cooking in their home!

Bosch has really designed a powerhouse here. 6 months ago, when I wanted to buy a stand mixer to replace a basic Sunbeam from years ago, I thought "Of course, I'm finally going to get that Kitchenaid I saw in the kitchen store all those years ago, but couldn't afford. That's the real deal." Then I read the reviews on Amazon, and read the Yahoo Mixer-Owners list and some other bread making lists. With the amount of complaints I saw, and the prohibitions in the manual against using too much flour or to high a speed or whatever, I decided I needed to keep looking.

Enter the Bosch. The reviews and youtube videos showed that the way you know how much flour / dough you can make in this - when the bowl is full! That's the sort of obvious scenario I like! The Bosch Universal Plus (BUP) also has quite the reputation for lasting forever. So far, I have no reason to doubt that. I've done 6 loves of bread at once in this, and it's never gotten hot, shut down or even slowed down. I've done mashed potatoes, no problem. It does have overload protection, but I have to say, so far the only way I can imaging tripping that is if you're mixing up concrete.

Many reviews have some listed weaknesses of the Bosch. I'd like to address them as I see them.

1) It's plastic and ugly.
It is plastic. It's a strong plastic, I don't see any issues with reliability so far. As to being ugly, I think that's a matter of opinion. The best part about being plastic is it's light and it's not that large, so I put it away when I'm not using it. It fits in a cabinet in my Kitchen. So to me, asking how pretty it is is like asking how pretty my skillsaw is. It's a tool that's in the shed when I'm not using it. Who cares?

2) It's hard to clean.
Honestly, I don't know where this is coming from. You can put everything but the dough hook in the dishwasher. I actually wash it by hand by setting my tap water on hot and using my sink sprayer to knock off all the batter or dough or whatever, add some dish soap, swish it around and rinse. The whole thing is non-stick. Everything just sloughs off under some water pressure. It's easer to clean than the glass bowls from my old Sunbeam mixer. I suppose it's a little fiddly because there are so many parts, but again they all go in the dishwasher save the dough hook. And that really is as easy to clean as the bowl etc. The hardest part is wiping down the stand / motor that you can't just spray water at, but I can't see how it could be that hard as it's the same sort of slippery plastic and you just rub a little with some hot water and done.

3) It can't do cakes or cookies.
All I can say is "works for me". I did several kinds of cookies and cakes over the last 6 months and it was the same as using the old Sunbeam. I honestly don't know how it could be easier - it worked like any other mixer. I suppose if you didn't know to use the whisks and tried to use the dough hook it wouldn't work, but . .. ?? I even did frosting.

4) Can't do small batches.
This is true depending on your definition of small. I found it couldn't really do a half recipe of buttercream frosting when I needed just a bit more for my cakes I did last weekend. But that's a half recipe - it would be the frosting for 1 8" round. That's probably unusually small. For bread, if you're doing 1 loaf, I would use a bread machine, but there are attachments (for like $6) to do small dough amounts. To be honest, I'm not messing with a mixer and the oven etc for less than 6+ loaves of bread, so it doesn't come up for me.

5) Extra part to scrape down with the center post.
Well, yes and no. Yes, you occasionally have to scrape the bowl down. I haven't heard of a mixer that you don't. The middle post rarely needs to be scraped down though as the batter or dough is all being pushed against it by the beaters or hook so it gets grabbed by the mixer. I generally have to scrape down the outside of the bowl, and that's the same as with my old mixer.

I have to say, I'm really happy with my Bosch. It has pretty much all the same attachments like a food processor, blender, pasta maker etc that the competition has. It powers through the jobs. One thing, if you buy this, get the cookie paddles and batter whisks. You'll want to use them for cookies and cake batter respectively. The French Whisks that it comes with are good for making marshmallows and angelfood cake and things you really really need to beat / whip. But for cake batters I suggest the batter whisks which don't beat as strongly. And get ready to want to "collect them all" for attachments.

Last year I bought the new Bosch mixer. I've never had a stand mixer, but I read the reviews and talked to a few people who are serious cooks/bakers. So I spent the extra money and got the Bosch instead of some less expensive brands. I'm so glad I did!
I have used the mixer mostly for whole wheat bread. The motor is so powerful and efficient that it doesn't even slow down kneading the stiff dough. I can easily mix fresh ground flour (using up to 15 cups!), and get 4 huge loaves of bread (or 5 smaller loaves). I've baked bread every week since I bought the mixer. Haven't bought any at the store.
I've also used the mixer for huge batches of cookies, brownies & mashed potatoes. No sweat. I use the blender too, but not as often as the mixer.
I love it, my family loves it, and my only regret is that I've gone so long w/o one.

I bought this from Denise at [...]. What a dream this machine has been. Clean up is a tad bit more then what I was looking for, but hands down, I would never ever get another mixer. It can handle whatever I throw at it. 4 loaves at a time of bread, no sweat. Double Batch of shortbread cookies, not a problem. I love this machine!! I have most of the attachments and I love each. I plan on getting the rest of the attachments. YOu will not be sorry!!!

I had a kitchen aid before I bought the bosch. While it mixes dough really good, cleaning up is really not fun. With the kitchen aid, I had only the stainless steel bowl, and 1 attachment to clean. However, with the bosch, I have to wash the plastic splash shield, all those little paddle, and the bowl, the gear under the bowl...

I bought this machine and paid the big bucks because I make bread all the time and thought I deserve a really good bread mixer. As far as making bread dough it really does an excellant job...but I was using it for all my mixing and I ended up hating it. The main reason was the cleaning. I had to use a toothbrush to get it clean and to do any regular size batches of cookies or bread I had to do lots and lots of scraping to get it to mix evenly. It also is exceptionally loud. I didn't realize how loud it was until I went back to my kitchen aid and heard the difference. If you are buying it soley for large batches of bread dough then you will love it but if you want it as a multi purpose mixer I would look else where.

I've been baking large batches of bread for 15 years. I've worked my way through 3 Kitchen Aids each time going to the larger model and ending with the "Professional" model. Each one lasted only about a year before the gear mechanism broke. Over the last 10 years or so I've used an Electrolux which is very sturdy and produces good bread but needs to be watched over and is somewhat of a pain to clean. I recently gave my Electrolux to my daughter and bought a Bosch. I can say without a doubt that for large batches of bread the Bosch makes the best bread with little effort. Clean up is very easy.

I am sorry I bought my kitchenaid mixer back in jul of 2005 because I feel like I wasted money. I just bought what everyone else bought. After the motor finally broke this past fall and tired of oil in my food from the overhead motor, I went in search of the perfect mixer to meet my family needs. I needed a machine that could whip up easy whipping cream within secs., mix 5-10lbs of potatoes with ease, or do simple cookie or cake batters, and mix dough too. I finally found my match... the Bosch universal stand mixer does all of those mentioned recipes with ease without oil in food or jumping off the counter (unlike the kitchenaid). I highly recommend the buying the additional batter whisks and cookie paddles for the smaller recipes of cookies, cheesecakes, cake batter and so on. My potato croquettes have not been this creamy since i used the manual potato ricer.i don't have to have it on my counter unlike the kitchenaid because it is so light. I store it on its side where the storage feet are located in my cabinet, which makes the kitchenaid look pre-historic compared to this modern gadget. As a side note to the kitchenaid mixer, it was hardly used in 2006-2007 and 2009 because of babies, so I feel like I really didn't get my monies worth. Just bought the bosch in December as christmas present and I can tell right away that this machine is far superior to my old mixer just by the speed it takes to whip up my ingredients. Additionally, my hands do not hurt anymore when lifting the bosch bowl because it is ergonomically correct with the shape compared to the kitchenaid that has one handle which off-sets all the weight and hurts my wrist and hand.

Owning a cabinet-building business, my husband always says that you gotta have the right tools for the job. Yes, this mixer is pricey, but in the long run, it saves me time and arm strength and does the job far better than I could ever do. My arms ain't what they used to be, and trying to knead 12 cups of freshly ground whole wheat flour for any period of time can really wear you out. And I like to make better use of my oven being on, so I make 4 or more loaves at a time. This machine really handles the dough well. My bread rose so high from having a nice gluten formation from the kneading, that next time I'm going to omit the little extra the recipe calls for. Also made a nice pizzelle dough using the beaters. The machine isn't very loud, as I expected it to be. Wasn't bothersome at all. Very easy to take apart and clean. I would advise watching some youtube videos to see it in action. If anything, more to see what other attachments you might want to get with it to save on shipping (if any). Amazon (CSN Stores) offered a competitive (if not the lowest) price, and I was able to buy Amazon gift cards at Giant Eagle for the extra gas savings. Something to think about. You won't regret buying this.