Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I already had the Kitchenaid mixer attachment for making ice cream. It isn't difficult to make ice cream this way, but there is a bit of prep work, a recipe is required, and it's usually a two day process. In addition, the cream or milk added to any ice cream adds to the calorie and fat content. When I found this machine on Amazon, I had to try it. My husband loves ice cream, but over years has put on a lot of weight. This sounded like the perfect solution for him to have healthy "ice cream" without adding to his weight problem. This "ice cream" is made with only fruit and is much more fun than a smoothie. The basic recipe is very easy to remember and easy to make - 2 frozen bananas and 3/4 cup of a frozen fruit for flavoring, i.e. raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, etc. You can add cocoa powder for chocolate "ice cream or, sandwich cookies for "cookies and cream". You can also make fruit sorbet, (I would call sherbet), which is basically 1 1/4 cups of frozen fruit. A recipe book is provided that has quite a few recipe ideas. What I love about this fruit soft serve maker is: - Desserts can be made with little prep work and spur of the moment. You can use fresh frozen fruit or frozen fruit sold in bags at the grocery store. Thaw the fruit for 7-10 minutes, put it through the machine, and your dessert is done. - Although there have been complaints of noise, I found this machine to be less noisy than most of my blenders. - Although some complained it would take a "muscle man" to push the fruit through. Being a 5'2", 74 year old woman, I had no problem pushing the fruit through this machine. - Cleanup is easy. There will be some fruit mixture inside the machine that can be removed with a spatula. Swish the parts in warm soapy water, let them dry, and cleaning is done. - Using only fruit, there are much fewer calories and no fats, and you can easily increase your fruit intake in a fun way. The first picture shows a dessert I made with only bananas and raspberries. It was delicious and took only 10-15 minutes to make including the 10 minute thaw time. I would definitely recommend this machine if you like ice cream and prefer a healthier alternative. Incidentally, I bought the original version that costs $20 less than the deluxe version that offers a recipe book with 75 recipes vs. 35 this on has. For $13.99, I found a recipe book on Amazon with 121 recipes including more than just frozen desserts. Supposedly, the deluxe version has a bit larger motor, but this one works fine and uses less electricity. UPDATE 08/20/21: Today, I made strawberries and cream ice cream and added some chocolate chips. I used 2 bananas, 1/2 cup of strawberries, 2 tbsp. whipping cream, and 1 tsp. vanilla. Mixed the cream and vanilla and thawed the fruit for about 10 minutes. I filled the chute about 3 times alternating the ingredients. In about 15 minutes, including thaw time, I had strawberries and cream ice cream with chocolate chips. I added a video of me making this ice cream. Sorry about the background noise from my parrots being noisy and construction workers outside. I wanted you to hear that this machine isn't excessively noisy and see there isn't much ice cream left in the machine when it's done. By the way, this was really good. Next I try cookies and cream using chocolate chip cookies!! This is so much fun - especially the eating part!! UPDATE 09/01/21: Although the deserts made with this machine are wonderful when you first make them, leftovers put into the freezer tend to be too icy. Putting wax paper over the leftovers helps to eliminate some of the iciness, but putting the container into the microwave for 30 seconds at full power eliminates the ice and brings it back to creamy. I hope this review was helpful for you. I will update this review if my opinion changes or discover creative ways to use it.