Beating and Mixing

Who would publish a book devoted entirely to eggbeaters?  Well as it happens the same person who has published a book devoted to apple parers. Don Thornton's The Eggbeater Chronicles is a tribute to what he believes is 'America's greatest invention' a claim which he justifies thus

The rotary crank eggbeater revolutionized cooking in America. It took the deadly drudgery out of mixing food ingredients. And that was a big mix, ranging from scrambled eggs, to cream, to batters, to cakes and scores of other deserts, breads sauces.... Mixing became an art - and the variation of eggbeaters vying for attention on the marketplace told a true American success story. (Thornton, p. xiii)

Just how efficient some of the earliest devices were or what they offered in terms of labour and/or time saving  is questionable but there is no doubt that the concept of the eggbeater greatly exercised the minds of American inventors. Thornton's book chronicles the patent and manufacturing history of American eggbeaters from the first patent issued to Ralph Collier in 1856, is full of wonderful photographs and runs to more than 300 pages. According to Thornton over 1000 American patents were granted (up to 1991) and several hundred different mixers were manufactured and marketed.

It isn't difficult to understand the enthusiasm for the hand cranked rotary beater at the end of the nineteenth century when the alternatives for beating egg whites to a froth for example were a knife or a three pronged fork  or perhaps two forks held together. Using bundles of twigs was presumably no longer considered an hygienic alternative and for some reason the balloon whisk seems to have been confined to the professional kitchen. A hand cranked, rotary beater still lurks in my kitchen (along with a collection of balloon whisks and a couple of other mixers which look as though they come straight out of Thornton's book) even though, for many applications, hand beating was eclipsed long ago by electrical gadgets of one sort or another. That said however the principle on which my hand cranked eggbeater operates is essentially  the same as that of my Sunbeam Mixmaster, that is

 two revolving beater-frames, said frames occupying the same working space and arranged to revolve in opposite directions so that they may cut against each other with a very peculiar shearing action.... The advantage of having two wheels operating in the same space and revolving in different directions is that the fluid being acted upon is cut and thoroughly beaten almost instantaneously

which is the way the William's Egg Beater was described in the patent application lodged in 1870 (See Thornton, p. 3). It was this patent which became the original 'Dover' beater, the 'Dover' brand going on to be almost synonymous with the egg-beater in the USA.

 American inventors weren't the only ones to be challenged by the concept of the eggbeater and no doubt tempted by the potential financial rewards. At least two Australian patents were issued. In 1899 Robert and Fanny Venus of Launceston, Tasmania patented an 'improved egg-beater and cake-maker' (Patent no. 9796, November 27 1899, as reported in Australian Town and Country Journal, 23 December 1899, p.61) which was subsequently advertised for sale in Launceston with the claim that it would 'make a sponge cake complete in five minutes' (Examiner, 5 January 1901, p. 1). To date I have not unearthed a picture of the Venus invention.

William Valentine Paley and Thomas Henry Bussey of Charters Towers registered the  Paley-Bussey Novelty Chain Egg Beater and Cake Mixer Company Ltd. in January 1904 (The North Queensland Register, 25 January 1904, p. 47). Messes Paley and Bussey had high hopes for their invention and registered patents in Great Britain, Canada, the United States, France, Germany and of course Australia and New Zealand. The Paley-Bussey was a non-mechanical, non-rotary hand held beater which was designed to be spun between the palms of the hands. The inventors claimed that the major advantage of their machine over other designs was the amount of  beater surface in contact with the medium to be beaten. To quote the description in The North Queensland Register (15 August 1904, p. 10) the gadget had a 'peculiar configuration'

the machine has about 9 ft of wire (6½ ft in spring circumference, and 2½ ft in the chains) all working in the stuff right away from the start, whereas with an ordinary whisk there is only (at the outside) about 2 ft of wire working in the stuff, and it is mostly owing to this fact that such excellent results are obtainable.

The other particular feature claimed for this invention was that, because the chains at the bottom hang free, the beater could, to some extent at least, adapt itself to any shape of bowl or dish.

Illustration form Thornton p. 283

However useful this device may have been for beating eggs and despite its name it hardly looks like much of a labour saver when it came to making cakes.

Of all the inventions in Thornton's book the first which really looks like a cake mixer is the 'Universal' Cake-Maker which was patented in 1905.

 Universal cake maker
 Photograph Vesna Ristevski from the collection of Liverpool Regional Museum, Liverpool, Australia.

This was another American invention manufactured by Landers, Fray and Clark of Connecticut. The bowl of the mixer clamped to the bench and the cross piece, with the  'mixing fliers' attached fitted on to the rim of the bowl, held in place with butterfly nuts. The beaters moved when the handle on the top was rotated. The cake maker also came with a 'kneading rod' for making bread and biscuits. Landers, Fray and Clark manufactured 'Universal' brand bread makers, butter churns and mayonnaise makers which worked on similar lines.

'Universal' cake-makers were advertised for sale in Australia from as early as 1907. In 1911 David Jones was exhibiting them in their 'specially fitted Exhibition Rooms' at 20 York Street. Sydney along with 'all the newest inventions in culinary and domestic labour savers' (Sydney Morning Herald, 11 October 1911,  p.5). For the 'Universal' cake-maker it was claimed that it 'mixes the batter for all  kinds of cakes; easier, more uniformly, and quicker than by hand' conveniently omitting to mention that the contraption was in fact still operated by hand.

How popular was the 'Universal'? It looks as though it required just as much elbow grease as hand mixing and from my modern perspective it seems bothersome to set up and difficult to clean. But perhaps if I could take myself back a hundred years I would regard the 'Universal' cake maker with the same reverence that I have for my dear old Mixmaster - which is itself 39 years old this year.

Thornton, Don. The Eggbeater Chronicles. The stirring story of America's greatest invention. 2nd edition. 1999. Published by Don and Diane Thornton, Thornton House Publishing, Sunnyvale, California.
Email info@thorntonhouse.com