I finally bought one of KitchenAid's popular stand mixers, and it totally lives up to its hype

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

AmazonSome products have earned such a sterling reputation that it's easy to be skeptical whether all the hype is justified.

I've been cooking and baking a lot this year and realized one of the few things holding me back was the time commitment, so I bought what many consider to be a culinary holy grail, the KitchenAid stand mixer.

After using it for a couple months, I can easily say it's the best kitchen tool I own. I'm not alone in thinking this, KitchenAid's mixers took many of the top spots in our best stand mixers guide.

KitchenAid has a whole line of stand mixers that vary in power and performance. I decided to stick with the Classic Plus because of its affordability. At 4.5 quarts, its mixing bowl is still large enough to make dough or batter while being small enough to fit in one of my kitchen's cabinets.

Although it's powerful, I found the Classic Plus very easy to use. It has two switches: one on the right to lock the top part in place to reduce jitteriness during use, and another left to control its speed. That's it. There isn't even a power button; it's ready to go right after being plugged in.

I've traditionally whisked, stirred, kneaded, and mixed my baking ingredients by hand, but it took a long time, and my hand would cramp after a few minutes. I bought an inexpensive mixer last year, but it wasn't made very well, so I still ended up doing most, if not all, of the work by hand.

KitchenAid's Classic Plus mixer changed that and made my baking a lot more efficient in a couple of ways. The first was by quickly and thoroughly combining all of my ingredients — the goal of any mixer. I've been continually impressed at how great of a job it's done, especially when first introducing a wet mixture to a dry one. There were never any clumps, lumps, or other imperfections I had to go back and correct later — instead, I let it run for a couple of minutes and moved on to the next step of the recipe.

The second time-saver has been using the Classic Plus' mixing bowl as the only container for ingredients. Before, I would dirty two or three bowls by preparing different parts of a recipe in steps to ensure everything would combine correctly. Since that wasn't a problem anymore, I could pour my flour, add my butter, and crack my eggs into the mixing bowl without a second thought. It made cleaning up a lot quicker, especially since my sink is fairly small and dishes can pile up quickly.

Overall, I've probably saved around 20 minutes in prep, cook, and cleanup time, which adds up since I typically bake once a week.

Although you can buy a lot of accessories for it, the fact that the Classic Plus comes with a wire whisk, flat beater, and dough hook means you'll probably have everything you need right in the box. I've been tempted to step up my game, but the included attachments have more than satisfied me so far.

If you're getting serious about baking and want to save time and get better results, KitchenAid's Classic Plus gets my highest recommendation. It works easily, efficiently, and better than any other tool I've used in the kitchen.

For once, the hype is completely justified.