Love For My KitchenAid Mixer

 I made another batch of cupcakes on Sunday.  Vanilla cake with coconut frosting tinted pink.  I used the last of my pink heart cupcake liners that were a birthday gift from a friend of my daughter's.  (Thank you, Maddie!)  I love eating cupcakes but I enjoy giving them away, too.  I gathered them in groups of four and tied them with a thin satin ribbon and heart cut out of scrapbook paper.  (I realize it's after Valentine's Day but it's never too late to send a little love to some friends.)

 The cupcakes wouldn't be possible without one of my favorite appliances, my KitchenAid mixer.  I absolutely LOVE this thing and use it all the time.  It was a gift from my in laws shortly after my husband and I were married.  The funny thing was that when it arrived in the mail (the shipping cost alone must have been more than our net worth combined) I thought "why would they send this?  I'll hardly use it."  (So laughable now.)  Little did I know how grateful I would be and how much use I would get from it through the years.  (Much thanks, Lynn and Kathryn!)  And yes, my father-in-law is named Lynn.

 So speaking of loving KitchenAid mixers, Kristy, from The Diary of Dave's Wife transformed her already cute red mixer into a stylish appliance with it's own name.  "Dottie" is perfect for this piece of positively polka dot perfection.  It just seems like such a happy appliance.  (Can mixers be happy?)  I would probably be happy using it.

"Dottie" looks so good that I've been thinking about doing a little vinyl art on my KitchenAid.   I'm concerned though, about all the batter, frosting and food that ends up everywhere.  We do extreme mixing at our house so a bit of heavy duty cleaning is usually necessary afterwards.  I'm not sure how that would work with a pretty vinyl design that I would have to clean around.

 Here is a peek at the measuring spoons I use all the time.  (Of course, I choose the set with the cupcakes.)  I bought them two summers ago at The Wonderland Bakery in California.  I thought they were so cute and unique at the time.  They're still cute but maybe not so unique now.  A few months ago my mother-in-law came to visit and she and I spent the day in a nearby little town shopping the boutiques.  (It's our job.)  Practically EVERY single store we came to sold the exact same set of cupcake measuring spoons (and other designs) that I thought were so special.  Too funny.  Oh, well, I still really like them even if they are an overpriced touristy thing.

After I delivered the cupcakes and visited with my friends, Sunday evening, I returned home (dreaming) planning on frosting and eating a cupcake for myself.  (After all, there were a least seven left.)  But, alas, the human vacuum (my 14yr old, 6 feet tall, constantly eating son) had descended upon the goodies while I was away.  Every last crumb was gone.  There was still some frosting left in the bowl since he eats his cupcakes plain but that was it.  Now, I'm not above eating a bowl of frosting (it's really yummy frosting) but it just wasn't going to happen.  So I ate an apple instead.  True story.  (And then two spoonfuls of frosting.)

So do any of you pastry chefs or weekend bakers have cool designs on your mixers?  And if so, how do you go about cleaning them?