I'm in the market for a hand mixer to use when my 6 quart KA isn't big enough. The hand mixer I have is cheap and unable to handle heavy batters. Do any of you have a hand mixer that's a real workhorse?

I actually picked up a Crofton mixer with bowl from Aldi's just for a back-up. It was 24.99 and is a serious rock star!

my advice, would be to do some research on the web by looking up some well known brands like kitchen aid kenwood etc look at the watts of the products and find one that has the most watts (means power) is made of good quality materials, has a good warranty and then go around to speciality kitchen shops (where they have tested most of the products they sell to see what they are like) and ask for opinions. i would definitely buy the best you can afford as these things are an investment, and you dont want it to blow up.

another thing to look at when buying these things especially when working with heavy batters is to make sure that the product either comes with a good warranty or a thermo cut off switch, this means your device when getting hot will turn itself off and not work until cooled down - insead of overheating blow up and thats it no more mixer - very important when using for long amounts of time as alot of mixers will have in fine print do not use for long periods of time. you would be unlucky to blow one up but just incase!
also turbo button is great too and a mixer that will stand by itself is a great invention!
hope this helped
good luck on your quest

Thanks for your advice!

I think I remember an episode of America test kitchen (or some other food show) where they tested various brands of hand mixers and Kitchen Aid came out on top hands down