Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a great little home ice cream maker. If you have used one before, this isn't all that different. I recommend that you read and follow the directions. I will share my experience so far: The churning vessel (freezer bowl) is small enough to store in the freezer. It is a round, deep insulated bowel and all told is about the size of a container of ice cream. When you receive this, just get that out and put in your freezer, since it needs 24 hours to get super duper cold. Roughly 8" inches tall, 6" wide (21" measured all around). 1.5 quart capacity As for ingredients, the instructions say to prepare the recipe and store in fridge for 20 hours. Well, since the milk and cream I would be using was already in the fridge, I figured it would be ok to just mix it up moments before wanting to make ice cream. Turns out my decision yielded perfectly good results. I am not sure how much better it would be if I mixed the milk, cream, sugar, vanilla together ahead of time. Maybe I will try that sometime, but likely not. The machine itself is super simple in design and super easy to put together. There is the: -- lightweight plastic housing with cord --a handle ring (allows you to pick up the freezer bowl) --motor housing (basically the lid) --lightweight plastic paddle that connects to motor housing --double insulated freezer bowl, no need to add ice. To turn on/off, just press top button. NOW, here is where I screwed up the first time. I kinda took my freezer bowl out from freezer and dumped my mix into the bowl. When I went to put the lid on (with paddle attached), the paddle wouldn't fit therefore the lid couldn't be closed. Want to know why? The mixture formed an instant frozen layer along the bottom and sides of the bowl- effectively making the paddle too big for the bowl. My fault. So then I had to poor out contents, clean out freezer bowl using hot water. It cleaned up well, but at this point I made the bowl no longer cold enough to be able to make ice cream. I wasted ingredients and I wasted a days worth of waiting. Don't do what I did. Read instructions first. HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY MAKE ICE CREAM: read instructions, lol. 1. Combine your ice cream ingredients in a typical mixing bowl. The manual has 5 recipes. I chose to make the vanilla ice cream recipe. Directions say to store in fridge for 20 hours. I omitted this step. It is super quick to make, so I combined ingredients that I took from my fridge just moments before I planned to make ice cream. 2. Once ready, get out your freezer bowl that has been resting in freezer for 24 hours or more. DO NOT WAIT- the bowl begins to thaw the moment it is taken from freezer. You want this frozen! Place in the housing. Put on lid with paddle. Are you ready? 3. NOW, turn on your machine by pressing button on top. It is not loud. No concerning sounds have been made*. Just sounds like a quiet mixer. While on, take the mixing bowl full of ingredients and pour through the opening in the lid. Get it all in there. Set a timer for 30 minutes*. You will see the liquid turn into sludge, and over the next 30 minutes it will firm up and turn into.. ICE CREAM!! YES!! OMG YES!! (I love ice cream). DO NOT let the machine work more than 30 minutes. 1. the directions say so. 2. the directions says "let product churn for 20-30 minutes or until thickened" 3. manual says, "do not exceed maximum operating time of 30 minuts or the motor might overheat. In case of overheating, unplug the product and let it cool for 30 minutes" THAT is why I set a timer. Also wouldn't hurt to not be too far away, and to check on it half way through. Depending on what recipe you use (from the manual or something you find) the churning time may be different. ALSO, if you are wanting to use hard ingredients, the instructions say to add stuff like that in at the last 5 minutes. Now that the churning is over. You will have (at least this is what I have found with how I made it) semi soft ice cream. Soft enough to be like soft serve. Intriguing enough that my labs wanted a spoonful. If you think it is too soft for you, scrape out into a container and place it in the freezer to firm up. According to manual, " IF a firmer consistency is desired, transfer the icecream/sorbet/frozen yogurt to an air tight contaner and store in the freezer for 2 or more hours". This is not mandatory. It is a preference thing. From my experience, it will be ice cream SCOOPER READY in about 15 minutes of putting back in freezer (see my pic). It will be super firm 30 minutes later and beyond. Next day, I practically had to let it sit so it would be easier/softer to eat. Got me? Btw, definitely cover your ice cream--dont want freezer taste in your fresh made ice cream. I scraped my ice cream into a banana bread pan. What are those actually called? Loaf pan? I lined mine with wax paper- it kept it from sticking, and the excess served as a cover for my beautiful, delicious ice cream. DO NOT STORE your ice cream in the freezer bowl. - The bowl, which is double walled, is super frozen, and you will just have extra frozen ice cream. Also, you could damage the lining of the bowl. Also, you may want to make more ice cream. _________________________________________________________________________________ The recipe I use is in the booklet. I always make Vanilla ice cream ("9 servings"--lol, no...2-3 and all for me!) +1 cup whole milk +1/4 cup granulated sugar +1 pinch salt +2 cups heavy cream +1 TBS vanilla extract. In a mixing bowl, whisk to combine the milk, salt and sugar until salt and sugar is dissolved. Stir in heavy cream and vanilla exract Place mixture in refrigerator at 41*-50*F for at least 20 hours. (again, I didn't bother with last part). I really love vanilla ice cream. I jazzed it up a little with a generous scoop of strawberry jam, or caramel. What a great combo. I have made this recipe 4 times now. Each time everything has come out the same. I included pics from the first time (orange little bowl), and from most recent time (white bowls). I make exactly according to directions in booklet. I want to try a "nice cream", but I need to figure out what else needs to go into it for thickening. __________________________________________________________________________ PS. Do not exceed 27 ounces of mixture or ingredients as per directions. So for me, this has been mega success. After I scraped the ice cream out from the freezer bowl, I quickly washed it out with hot water, then I popped it back in the freezer. Now I can make ice cream and have it ready in 30-60 minutes. It was only the first 24 hours- once the machine arrived- that was the actual waiting game. The rest of the machine packs away easily. I love that it is lightweight. *I just wanted to add, that when I did my screw up- I had been trying to make a coconut milk based ice cream. I had stored the can of coconut milk in the fridge so it would be nice and cold. If you decide to used canned coconut milk, plan to mix the contents really well so all the water, cream, and fat get put back together. I noticed that when I tried t fix my mistake- after scraping everything out and rinsing the freezer bowl with hot water.. I dumped the mixture through lid port and the paddle started grinding- making the loud noise like some mentioned. This is because the oil in the coconut milk instantly solidified which made the paddle catch on a newly formed solid edge. Otherwise, I never had that problem. It was strictly a matter of user error on my part. All ice cream.. when made correctly, according to directions have been superb.