This compact mixer has changed up my pizza dough routine, and doesn't consume a whole cupboard of space

Around six months ago, I got my hands on an electric pizza oven (the Pizzaiolo, from Sage), and it's been a thrilling game-changer in terms of how I've made pizza at home. The only real downside to getting one of the very few pizza ovens that can work indoors is that it still takes up a massive chunk of storage in my not particularly huge top-floor London flat.

So, it's been with some trepidation that I've also been looking out for a stand mixer, a notoriously sizeable part of any chef's lineup of appliances, to help upgrade my dough-making. After graduating past store-bought dough a while ago, my hands were getting tired of self-kneading everything.

It was this storage issue that made the Morphy Richards MixStar so attractive, and after my first batch of dough-making, I'm really pleased with how it's slotted into my cooking and my cupboards.

This stand mixer doesn't look like many others on the market. Rather than a bowl with a large arm over it, Morphy Richards has put the mixing circulator into the bowl itself, more like the inside of a food processor.

Crucially, it's also designed so that when you're not using it, all the attachments and parts nest within that bowl, giving you a far less bulky overall device to hide away in your cupboards. It's hard to convey how much of a boon that is, but as someone whose kitchen can only accommodate an under-counter fridge, for instance, it's quite a major point.

The MixStar comes with attachments for whisking, frothing and more, but I've so far only used the dough mixer, and it's performed ably – although I did immediately run up against an obvious limitation. The instructions are quite clear that my standard batch of dough, enough for four pizzas, would overload the advised weight limits for the bowl.

So, I did two batches instead, and that hardly added much time to my process. Still, it's possibly a reminder that this compact design does come with some compromises compared to something weightier like a KitchenAid Artisan, which has a way higher maximum weight for dough.

That said, a KitchenAid Artisan is also about twice as expensive, way heavier and more awkward to store, so the comparison doesn't bear too much weight. If I had a bigger kitchen, I'd probably pine after a higher-capacity mixer, but in my situation the MixStar is quite clearly a sensible option.

The other thing I was interested to assess was whether its lighter weight and interesting design made the MixStar more liable to move around in use. Suction cups underneath the main body have seen to it that it's stable enough in my experience, but I might be cheeky and overload it at some point to see how it fares on both the mixing and moving front.

The last check from my end was cleaning up after my mixing, something that's a big part of why I wanted a mixer in the first place. Scraping lost dough bits and flour off my kitchen surface got old quickly, whereas the MixStar was easy to scrub thanks to its stainless steel bowl.

I'm thoroughly impressed, basically, and looking forward to seeing what other baking options it's going to unlock. Pizza might have been the reason I needed it, but who knows what creations I'll be baking up in the months to come?