It's always an exciting time when KitchenAid unveils its Colour of the Year. Or Color of the Year if you live in the USA. Last year, the colour was 'honey' – or 'light brown' if you prefer. For 2022, the theme of using hues that relate to foodstuffs continues with the introduction of 'beetroot' as the official Colour (Color) of the Year.
Beetroot is highly underrated as a vegetable. It's delicious when cooked right, and packed with nutritional goodness. A lot of people don't like beetroot because it has a justified reputation for staining, and also perhaps because they find its intensely purple colour a little alarming. You just don't get that many purple foods in nature.
However, applying its colour to a classic KitchenAid stand mixer or other small appliance is a very different matter. There, it becomes what KitchenAid calls 'a lush magenta with a luxurious satin finish'.
KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer and K400 Blender, in deepest beetroot – the Colour of the Year, no less!
I'm very happy KitchenAid has gone with this particular hue. That's because, as a colourblind person, there are certain shades of purple that I can't really see. In fact, believe it or not, I have actually bought purple clothing and sneakers in the past, because I thought they were blue. No, really. I know, right?
This shade, however, I can clearly see is not blue; it's magenta. Although of course, whether what I'm seeing is the same as what you're seeing, we will never know.
This kind of rich purple has long been associated with royalty. Most notably, the late pop star and funk sex god Prince. His name was Prince, and he was funky, and one of his obsessions for many years was the colour purple, although he later gravitated towards a more orangey palette preference. Famously, he created the album and movie Purple Rain. These landmarks of 80s pop culture showcased his absolutely slapping funk-rock sound, his predilection for marrying sexual and religious imagery and, in the movie, his near complete absence of acting skills.
Anyway, that aside, KitchenAid is showcasing the beetroot colour on its iconic Artisan Stand Mixer, and on the K400 Blender. I can't imagine anyone needs me to tell them about the Stand Mixer at this point. It appears on any TV programme you'll ever watch that relates to baking, and when it comes to mixing ingredients whilst looking highly stylish, there is little out there to 'beat' it. Beat: get it?
If you want to go down the beetroot, erm, route, the exact model you'll be wanting is the KitchenAid Artisan Tilt-Head Stand Mixer 4.8L 5KSM195PS. It has a 4.8-litre capacity and comes with all the trimmings: Flex Edge Beater, Pastry Beater, Coated Subtle Silver Dough Hook, Wire Whip, Pouring Shield and an additional, 2.8-litre stainless steel bowl, in addition to the standard 4.8-litre one.
The K400 is maybe less universally known, but you can see what it is. It's a powerful, 1000W blender, and it's almost equally as stylish as its stand mixer sibling. The full model name/number in this case? KitchenAid Artisan K400 Blender 5KSB4026.
Whether any further KitchenAid products are released in this colour remains to be seen although, as with the vegetable, you can have too much of a good thing when it comes to beetroot. Perhaps the stand mixer and blender are sufficient.
KitchenAid Stand Mixer and Blender in beetroot: price and availability
In T3's native UK, these magenta maestros cost £300 (blender) and £600 (stand mixer). In the USA it's $300 for the blender and $500 for the stand mixer. And in Australia you're looking at AU$449 and a cool AU$999 respectively.
KitchenAid's colour and product info pages below also include some lip-smackin' beetroot recipes. Yes, you can mix up actual beetroot in your new beetroot-coloured mixer or blender! How's that for synergy?
