If your hand mixer beaters keep ejecting themselves in the middle of whipping cream or cookie dough, you’re not alone. Here’s the secret I wish I’d learned years earlier.
If you’ve ever been halfway through mixing cookie dough only to have a beater pop out like it’s trying to escape, you’re not alone.
I struggled with this for years before I finally noticed the answer hiding in plain sight.
On the back of most hand mixers, you’ll see two little symbols next to the beater slots.
One is plain, and the other has a tiny cross at the bottom.
The beater with the cross goes into the slot with the matching symbol. The plain one goes into the regular slot.
That’s it. Mystery solved.
Why they’re designed this way, why one has a cross and one doesn’t is still beyond me.
If you know the reason, please drop a comment because I’d love to find out.
Now that you know, your beaters should stay put and behave themselves while you whip up cookies, cakes, or mashed potatoes.
More Baking Help
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You may find these baking posts helpful: from How to Avoid Flat Cookies, How to Freeze Cookie Dough, Room Temperature Butter for Baking to Salted or Unsalted Butter for Cookies? to Do I Need A Cookie Scoop?, Cookie Size Chart to What Should a Beginner Bake? to Where Can I Buy Sprinkles?, Why is my sugar cookie dough too sticky? and Cookie Holidays. What is Sanding Sugar and Do I need Parchment Paper? might also be helpful. This Cuisinart 5-speed is my favorite hand mixer. Why do my hand mixer beaters fall out? Cookie dough freezes great as do already baked cookies but find out what other desserts you can freeze.
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Incidentally, the hand mixer I used in this post is the best hand mixer for occasional bakers.
Jess says
The strange thing is, I put the beaters in the right holes, but even after doing that one of them refuses to stay locked in place and is loose (and then falls out). The hand mixer worked great the first few times I used it, but after that the beater without the cross symbol won't stay in. Maybe it's the brand of mixer I have...
Jennifer Osborn says
Jess! This is odd. What brand of mixer is it? Can you send me a photo of the holes and the beaters/ It doesn't make sense that it would work the first few times and then stop.
Thanks,
Jennifer
sharon says
same here. worked great for a while. now one wobbles then falls out.