Fair question. If there’s an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer in the cupboard, a hand whisk can look like a leftover from a less convenient era. I’d still keep one, and a big balloon whisk earns its drawer space more often than you’d think.

Where a hand whisk is just quicker

Small jobs. Two eggs for an omelette, one pot of double cream for a crumble, a quick batter for Yorkshire puddings. By the time you’ve found the mixer, plugged it in and fitted the beaters, you could have finished with a whisk and washed it up.

Anything on the hob. Custard, white sauce, gravy, a béchamel for lasagne. You can’t sensibly take an electric mixer to a hot pan, and a whisk is the best tool there is for knocking out lumps as a sauce thickens.

Whipped cream you don’t want to ruin. Electric mixers get cream from soft peaks to grainy butter in seconds. By hand you feel it thicken and stop at exactly the right point. It takes a couple of minutes and slightly sore forearms, but you’ll rarely overdo it.

Dry ingredients. A few turns of a whisk through flour, baking powder and cocoa mixes them evenly and breaks up small lumps without getting the sieve out.

When the mixer wins

Creaming butter and sugar for a cake, egg whites for meringue or pavlova, a big batch of buttercream. Those are long, hard jobs, and that’s what the motor is for. If you’re weighing up an electric mixer, we looked at whether the Kenwood QuickMix is enough for Christmas baking.

A good balloon whisk to buy

The OXO Good Grips 28cm Balloon Whisk is about as safe a choice as kitchen kit gets. It’s very well reviewed on Amazon UK, and there’s nothing clever about it, which is rather the point.

  • A wide balloon shape that pulls air in, so it’s good for cream and eggs as well as sauces
  • Polished stainless steel wires
  • A soft, non-slip handle shaped to sit in your palm, which matters more than you’d think for two minutes of whipping cream
  • About 28cm long, big enough for a mixing bowl but still fine in a saucepan
  • Dishwasher safe
  • Covered by OXO’s own repair-or-replace guarantee

One thing to watch

Steel wires and non-stick pans don’t get on. If you make most of your sauces in a non-stick pan, a silicone-coated whisk is kinder to the coating. For bowls, stainless pans and cast iron, a steel balloon whisk like this one is the better tool, because the thinner wires whip air in faster.

So no, you don’t strictly need one. But for lump-free gravy on a Sunday and cream that’s whipped rather than buttered, a decent hand whisk is the most useful thing in the drawer for the least money.