Verdict

The Russell Hobbs 24672 Desire Matte Black Hand Mixer is an affordable mixer offering a good range of speeds. This means it can tackle jobs from combining dry ingredients into a wet mixture to whisking liquids and mixing bread doughs. It’s lightweight and boasts a turbo boost function, for those occasions you need your ingredients combined more quickly. Handily, all the tools are dishwasher-safe.

Pros

• Good range of speeds
• Turbo boost function
• Dishwasher-safe tools

Cons

• No whisk attachment

What is the Russell Hobbs 24672 Desire?

The Russell Hobbs 24672 Desire Matte Black Hand Mixer is a new, all-black kitchen tool, and an updated model of the red-and-black 18960 Desire. Although modest in appearance, it’s an excellent mixer, tackling everything from cream and eggs to brioche dough with plenty of oomph.

Considering its light weight, range of speeds and affordable price, this mixer is a joy to use. 

It may be simple but this is a powerful and useful hand mixer

Russell Hobbs 24672 Desire Matte Black Hand Mixer – What you need to know

• Beating – It took less than a minute to combine beaten egg yolks and unsifted icing sugar into a smooth mixture to make a custard for crème brûlée, without making a mess.
• Whisking – Double cream took around 2mins 35secs to be beaten into stiff peaks, increasing speed gradually from 1 to 4.
• Kneading – It took 4mins 45secs to combine ingredients for brioche dough at slow speeds. Later, adding a softened block of butter to the dough took a further 5 minutes. The dough rose well into a handsome brioche.

Related: Best mixers

The results from the dough hooks can be impressive

The Russell Hobbs 24672 Desire Matte Black Hand Mixer – It may look modest, but the design is thoughtful

While looking slightly unassuming in its black plastic frame, the 24672 Desire mixer has plenty going for it. Although most of the kitchen tool is decked out in matte black, its bottom and the top of the handle are both shiny – most likely for easier cleaning. The matte underside of the handle allows you to grip the mixer comfortably, with no concerns about dropping it even if your hands are greasy.

It’s also the most lightweight mixer I’ve tested, coming in more than 135g lighter than the Swan Fearne 5-Speed and the KitchenAid 7-Speed hand mixers (with the beater tools attached). While this may not sound like much, it will have an impact depending on how long and how often you’ll be using the mixer.

The 24672 offers five speed settings

The Russell Hobbs 24672 Desire Matte Black Hand Mixer – A speed switch doubles as the eject button

The speed control switch bears numbers 0 to 5 on its left side and can be flipped up and down to regulate the speed.

With the switch set to 0, its entire mechanism acts as the tool ejector button. Just press inwards where there’s a convenient depression in the switch. Confusingly, the “eject” marking is near the bottom of the switch, which had me trying to press its bottom edge to no avail.

Beneath the switch is the turbo boost button, which gives you a burst of high speed when depressed. I tried it out while mixing brioche dough and it helped move the process along.

There’s a boost option for when you need a bit more welly

The Russell Hobbs 24672 Desire Matte Black Hand Mixer – There are only two sets of accessories, as the beaters also double as whisks

Handily, the beaters and dough hooks are both chrome-plated and dishwasher-safe.

The beaters are suitable for mixing cream, eggs, batters and lighter doughs. In my tests, I used beaters for whisking as well as beating. No wire whisk is included here, but the beaters managed to fluff up the double cream without much hassle.

The dough hooks are suitable for mixing heavier doughs. However, the manual here emphasises that they’re only meant for combining ingredients rather than actual kneading.

You can combine thicker doughs with the mixer but should kneed manually

Should I buy the Russell Hobbs 24672 Desire Matte Black Hand Mixer?

If you’re looking for an affordable hand mixer for occasional use, you can’t do much better than the 24672 Desire Hand Mixer. It’s lightweight and offers a good range of speeds for an affordable mixer, yet it’s able to tackle mixing doughs. For more dedicated bakers, a pricier heavy-duty option such as the KitchenAid 9-Speed hand mixer may be suitable.