Need to make some cookies in your Assistent mixer, 1950’s style?
The Assistent mixer has been around for many decades and the model shown on the front of that manual in the picture below appears to be an N4. I believe the N4 dates to the 1950s.
These cookie plates would attach in place of the grinder plate at the end of the meat grinder and you’d feed your cookie dough through – and out would come a strip of formed cookie dough, which you would then cut to whatever size you wanted.
Can the Assistent mixer handle small dough batches? You decide with this video!
People always ask if the huge 8 quart Assistent mixer can handle small dough batches. I took some quick video of my DLX Assistent kneading a pizza dough with only 294 grams of flour (about 2 cups). This is about a 55% hydration dough.
The beginning of the video shows a very inconsistent dough ball, but during kneading, it will smooth out nicely and become nice and elastic, as it should.
My former Pastry Instructor was donating some cookies. The big Hobart was down and the KAs in the school bakery leave something to be desired (functionality in most cases), so I decided to take in a couple of DLXs and help out. I wish I had thought to take more than two short snippets of video, though.
Cookie dough in the DLX:
Just for fun, the DLX in motion:
A bad picture of some of the Snickerdoodles:
We also made some Peanut Butter Cookies:
Snickerdoodles
Yield: 40 Cookies, 1 oz. each
Dough:
AP flour
14 oz.
420 g
100%
Baking powder
0.14 oz. (1 tsp.)
4 g
1%
Cinnamon
0.25 oz. (3 1/2 tsp.)
8 g
2%
Unsalted butter, softened
8 oz.
240 g
57%
Sugar
6 oz.
180 g
43%
Brown sugar
8 oz.
240 g
57%
Eggs
3.3 oz. (2 eggs)
100 g
23%
Vanilla extract
0.5 fl oz.
15 ml
4%
Salt
0.4 oz. (2 tsp.)
12 g
3%
Total dough weight:
2 lb. 8 oz.
1219 g
290%
Topping:
Granulated sugar
2 oz.
60 g
Cinnamon
0.25 oz. (3 1/2 tsp.)
8 g
Mix together cinnamon and sugar
Sift together the flour, baking powder and cinnamon. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then add the vanilla and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture, beating just until well combined.
Drop the dough in 1-ounce mounds onto paper-lined pans. Sprinkle the cookies generously with the topping mixture.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown but still moist, approximately 9 to 11 minutes.
Approximate values per cookie: Calories 90, Total fat 4 g, Saturated fat 2.5 g, Cholesterol 15 mg, Sodium 100 mg, Total carbohydrates 14 g, Protein 1 g
I recently grabbed a vintage, 1950’s Electrolux Assistent mixer from eBay. Included with the mixer was this set of beaters.
They are angled when attached to the mixer, with a rubber drive wheel that turns the beaters when they are pressed against the rotating bowl. They are too tall to fit IN the bowl.
How were they supposed to be used? You have to press the drive wheel into the side of the bowl and use another mixing bowl on the counter?
