Sweden’s first stand mixer

In 1937 Electrolux bought the rights to a professional bakery machine, and its name, from a firm in Eskilstuna. They put a civil engineer called Alvar Lenning on the job of making it work in a home, and he rebuilt it into what Ankarsrum still describe as “a sleek, lightweight metal casing”: cream motor frame, stainless bowl, wooden accessories.

It launched in 1940 as the NG1, at 250 watts, and became the first stand mixer made in Sweden. The wooden dough roller drew particular praise. The timing was poor in every other respect, because wartime rationing cut into production, and the company ended up publishing a crisis cookbook to go alongside the machine.

A three year waiting list

Material shortages after the war left the Assistent on a waiting list that ran from 1945 to 1949. Ankarsrum’s own history records what they did about the wait. They sold a matching cabinet to keep the machine in, and for anyone who did not want one, they handed out blueprints for modifying a kitchen drawer to take it instead.

After that the milestones come steadily. The hundred thousandth machine in 1957, alongside the 400 watt N4. Production moved in 1969 to Ankarsrum, an ironworks town in Småland that had been casting iron since the 1600s. A quarter of a million machines sold by 1974. Orange and brown in 1976. Electronic torque control in 1987.

The shape went angular with the Variomat in 1969 and stayed that way for a quarter of a century. In 1995 they redesigned it back to the streamlined original, and that is the outline still on the counter today.

The bowl sits on top of the gearbox

This is what makes it a different machine from everything else on the counter, and Ankarsrum are precise about why.

On a planetary mixer the bowl is clamped still, a beater orbits inside it, and the motor hangs above in the head. Here the bowl sits on top of the gearbox and turns, while the tools stay where you put them. Their own reasoning for it is mechanical rather than romantic: mounting the bowl above the gearbox gives a better ratio between motor and bowl, which makes the motor more efficient, and it leaves the bowl open from the top so you can add as you go.

For dough, that means a roller riding against the inside of the turning bowl while a scraper guides the dough back toward it, with the arm pressure adjustable. The stainless bowl holds seven litres and takes up to five kilos of dough on a litre and a half of liquid. A second bowl, 3.5 litres with balloon whisks, handles the jobs that want air rather than gluten.

Nine jobs, eighteen attachments

Whisk, mix, knead, mash, stir, grind, grate, make sausages, strain. Ankarsrum count nine functions across eighteen accessories, and the useful part is that they do not orphan them. New attachments fit old machines.

Assembled by hand, tested one at a time

Every Assistent is, in their words, “manufactured and assembled by hand in Sweden”, and each one is tested before it ships. It carries a seven year warranty, a full spare parts catalogue behind it, and factory serviced machines sold openly rather than quietly. The assumption running through all of it is that you will still own the thing in twenty years.

What we carry

The Assistent Original across the colour range, thirteen of them now beyond the original cream: black and glossy white through forest green, ocean blue, harmony beige and cloudy pink. The same machine underneath every one.

Then the attachments that turn it into other tools: the mincer, the vegetable cutter, the grater, the pasta roller and cutter set, the grain mill, the blender, and a deluxe package for anyone who would rather buy the set at once than one piece at a time.