Delicious Home-made Ice Cream in less than 45 Minutes

Author's Rating:

Pros: Inexpensive, makes great ice cream, easy to use, fast, not too noisy

Cons: ice cream not solid if eaten immediately

The Bottom Line: 
If you're looking for delicious ice cream you can make quickly at home, this is a good product.

Author's Review
I bought our Cuisinart Automatic Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream Maker about a month ago.  I’ve been thinking about buying an ice cream maker for years since our family of 6 LOVES ice cream.  But I never got one until Costco came out with a coupon for this Cuisinart.  After making a few batches of ice cream I have to say that this was a worthwhile purchase.  I kind of wish I had bought two.

This ice cream maker consists of 4 parts:  the base (plastic exterior), the tub, a plastic mixing arm & a clear plastic lid.  Very simple.  The base is solid with a bit of weight but is certainly not heavy.  It has rubber feet to keep the machine from sliding around your counter top, a 3’ cord & an on/off switch.  There’s also a cut-out under the base where you can store the cord when not in use.

There’s an instruction booklet which contains some easy recipes for basic ice creams, sorbets & sherbets, frozen yogurt, premium ice creams, slushies & a couple frozen drinks (pina coladas & frozen daiquiris).  I’ve never made ice cream before so I was happily surprised to find that you only need a few easy ingredients to make this stuff.  One hint:  the ice cream recipes call for whole milk but we drink fat-free here; I didn’t want to make a run to the store so used the fat free … the ice cream was delicious!  So don’t worry about stocking other milks in your fridge … just use what you have on hand.  Also, the chocolate recipe calls for solid bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate; I didn’t have that, either, so used sweet ground chocolate … YUM!

You must first put the tub in your freezer for quite some time (about 18 hours) before you can make anything.  It has to be frozen completely or the ice cream will be more like soft serve ice cream (which isn’t so bad … we were impatient once … the ice cream tasted good but was not solid & melted quickly). 

When the tub is frozen, it’s time to make ice cream!  Put the base on your counter & plug it in, mix the ingredients in one of your kitchen bowls, take the frozen tub out of the freezer & put it on the base, set the mixing arm inside the tub, put the lid on top.  Turn the machine on & pour your mixture into the spout at the top of the lid.  The machine isn’t silent; but it’s not loud either.  You can have it going & hear the tv nearby.  After 25-30 minutes your treat is ready! 

It’s really that simple.  And it makes very good frozen treats. 

To me, the biggest pain is getting the ice cream OUT of the tub.  It’s a tad awkward scraping the ice cream out of the mixing arm but nothing horrible (just thought I should find SOMETHING negative to say, lol).  They do suggest as an option putting the fresh ice cream in an air tight plastic container & storing it in your freezer for two hours.  We did that once & the ice cream was firmer.  But who wants to wait 2 hours before eating their ice cream??  We usually eat it immediately & just deal with a softer ice cream.  It still tastes great.

Clean-up is easy too:  The freezer tub must be hand washed, which is no problem since the ice cream washes away easily in warm, soapy water.  The base is easily wiped down with a wet cloth.  The mixing arm & lid can be put in the dishwasher (but they’re pretty easy to wash by hand as well).      

I only wish this Cuisinart made larger quantities.  It makes up to 1.5 quarts.  For a family of 6, 1.5 quarts doesn’t go very far.  I haven’t tried making a second batch immediately after the first yet.  They stress the importance of having the tub frozen & it does start melting right away, so I’m not sure how well a second batch would turn out.  I guess there’s only one way to find out!  But that’s why I said earlier that I wish I had bought two.

We have made about 4 batches of ice cream – vanilla, cookies & cream, & chocolate flavors – and one batch of slushies.  All have tasted wonderful.  I feel the taste of the ice cream was just as good as the really expensive stuff you buy at the ice cream parlors.  Well, maybe not QUITE as good, but it was VERY good!  And I’m really glad I bought our Cuisinart ice cream maker.