Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker - delicious summer treats

Author's Rating:

Pros: Easy to use and clean up

Cons: Not a thing

The Bottom Line: 
This makes frozen treats easily.

Author's Review
A few years ago I bought an ice cream machine that was powered by yours truly. I wasn’t sure I wanted to pay the money for and find the storage for an electric machine and they seemed pretty large. I liked the machine I bought and the ice cream I made was great. However the seal on the freezing container was a pain to deal with and I finally decided to explore my other options.

Having decided that, I started looking around. I wanted something fairly small because I have a small kitchen with limited storage. I wanted something that was electric because they seemed to make ice cream easily. I wanted something that was reasonably priced because I am not made of money. I found it.

The ice cream maker I bought is the Cuisinart Frozen Yogurt – Ice Cream and Sorbet Maker.

The first thing I liked about it was that it is small. Although about the height of my Kitchen Aide stand mixer, it only takes up about half of the counter space. This is very important in my small kitchen (limited counter space). I admit that it is a little heavy when fully assembled but only a few pounds. Besides, I wasn’t moving it while it was fully assembled.

I was reasonably priced too. I paid $49.95 at Cooking.com and think I got a pretty good deal. It makes lovely ice cream and is easy to clean.

You are wondering how this machine works, though so I’ll tell you.

The first thing you have to do when you get this machine home is wash it. You use warm soapy water and a sponge – nothing harsh. After washing, you can air dry or dry it with a dishtowel. You can put the clear plastic cover and the mixing blade in the dishwasher, if you want to. The base should just be wiped with a damp cloth (this is the electric part). Once everything is clean, you put the mixing bowl in the freezer so the liquid filling can freeze. This can take from 12 hours to 48 hours depending on your freezer. While that is happening you can read the booklet that comes with the Cuisinart and try to decide what you are going to make. (You don’t have to use their recipes, you can use any ice cream recipe.)

Once you are ready to go, you put the frozen bowl on the base, put in the mixing blade and put the plastic top on. You turn the top to lock I, plug the Cuisinart in and turn the machine on. As the machine is mixing and freezing, you add the ingredients you have chosen for whatever you are making – the top has a pour opening on the top. This pouring opening is a good size so it is easy to use. (Make sure your ingredients are cold, as you will get much better results with cold ingredients.)

Once everything is in the machine, you let it run for about 20 minutes. At the end of that time you pour your ice cream into a container and pop it in the freezer. The ice cream is very soft when you first make it but achieves an ice cream like consistency in about an hour in the freezer.

While your ice cream is in the freezer, you can wash up and put your lovely Cuisinart away.

I have made a very dark chocolate ice cream and a raspberry ice cream both were delicious and very easy to make. I am very pleased with this machine and since there is no seal on this freezing container, I think I will be able to use this without a whole lot of trouble.