Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've now had this machine for three months, and have used it about 25 times. This machine has exceeded my expectations each and every time. For a couple of decades, I used a low tech Donvier machine to make ice cream. The Donvier was the first widely-distributed machine that used the bucket that had to be kept in the freezer. It served me well, churning out hundreds of ice creams and sorbets over the years. But about six months ago, we adopted a low carb regimen. After a coupl of months I was hankering for ice cream. Both cream and eggs work very well on low carb, and I had done a lot of experimentation with natural sugar replacements, so I felt confident that I could come up with a viable recipe for a reasonably desirable alternative to the high carb stuff that's so ruinous to a healthy diet. However, the idea of intermittent churning on which the Donvier is based just didn't work with sugar free ice cream. Sugar is a highly structural component, especially in ice cream. Once you take it out, that changes every property of how ice cream is made. If you don't keep the sugar free mixture moving constantly, you'll end up with creamy soup with a few "icebergs" floating in it. And that's assuming you don't break your dasher trying to scrape the hard-frozen mixture off the sides. So I had two choices. I could have continued to buy one of the lower cost Cuisinart machines that churned electrically, but still required keeping a bucket in the freezer, or I could spend (much) more and buy a machine with its own compressor that eliminated the need for a freezer bucket, and which churned continuously. When I discovered that the second type allows multiple batches to be made in rapid succession, I was sold. With a freezer bucket, you can't do more than a batch each 24 hours, as the bucket has to be refrozen after each batch. My research led me to the Cuisinart ICE-100. Since my husband loves his ice cream, he agreed to let me spring for it. When it arrived, I quickly unpacked it, and discovered you must let it stay in place for 24 hours before its first use. The hubs, who is a professional engineer, told me this is true of all compressors. The compressor fluids circulate around during the shipping process, particularly if the box gets positioned with the top of the machine in any configuration than up. And for a compressor to work properly, the fluids have to return to the bottom, with the aid of gravity, meaning right side up. So I sat on my hands for 24 hours. So... hard... But it was well worth the wait. My first low carb ice cream was a classic vanilla. The texture when the machine had finished was like a Dairy Queen softserve! The taste, however, was much better than that. Think Haagen Dazs. Since then, I have added chocolate, strawberry, black raspberry, blueberry to the repertoire. All of them have been spectacular. And I'm happy to report that even with eating a lot of ice cream (the hubs puts away 2 bowls at a sitting) at we have still continued to lose weight! Diets don't get much better than this. The machine itself is incredibly easy to use. You put your well chilled mixture into the lightweight bucket, affix the lid so that it's locked in place, then plug in. You press the power button, set the timer (I find it easiest just to go with the 60 minute default) and press start. That's it! I usually check after 30 minutes, and usually, it's done by then. You can either opt to let it continue churning until either it becomes too stiff to continue, at which point it stops churning, or just press the stop button. The compressor will continue to chill without churning, for the remainder of the 60 minutes, at which point it will turn off. When it has reached a solid consistency, you can serve it. Or you can scrape it off the dasher and bucket into a container, cover it and set it in the freezer. If softserve isn't your thing, I'd suggest allowing it to "ripen" in the freezer for an hour before serving, in order for it to firm up. Wash your bucket and dasher, and you can then make another batch. The machine does make noise when it churns. We don't find the sound level to be objectionable, even though we have placed it on a counter between the kitchen and family room, where the TV is located. We can hear the TV just fine without adjusting the sound when we're in the family room, with the machine just 4-5' behind us. Another thing to be aware of is that if you opt to leave the mixture in the machine for the full 60 minutes, the bucket may well be frozen in place, making it impossible to remove it for scraping your ice cream out. I haven't found that to be a big problem, however. I just remove the dasher (which holds the majority of the ice cream) and scrape it, then use a silicone scraper to remove any ice cream that clings to the sides/bottom of the bucket. About 10 minutes after the machine is switched off, if the bucket had become too frozen to remove right away, it is then easily removed for cleaning. And speaking of cleaning, it's a simple matter. The bucket has only a small center spindle to hold the dasher, so some soapy water and a sponge makes fast work of it. And be sure to keep an old, sanitized toothbrush by your sink, which allows you to thoroughly clean the dasher in about 30 seconds flat. The plastic top is simple to clean, as well. The outside of the machine of burnished stainless is easily kept pristine with just a bit of Windex on a paper towel. Once you complete making your ice cream, unplug the machine, or a blue light on top will continue flashing until you do. All in all, this machine is a wonder of modern engineering. A quality machine, well made and simple to use. It's basically a mini version of what previously had been available only commercially to make smooth, velvety ice cream. The ICE-100 brings this capability into the home, with no salt, no ice, and perhaps best of all, no mess.