Cuisinart ICE-45 Mix It In Soft Serve 1-1/2-Quart Ice-Cream Maker, White
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Cuisinart ICE-45 Mix It In Soft Serve 1-1/2-Quart Ice-Cream Maker, White
Customer Review: Works Like a Charm!
Summary: 5 Stars
Our family absolutely loves this machine!
The pros are the easy set-up, simple recipe book and the clean-up. The cons are the bulk of the unit and the size of the mixing bowl. There's definitely enough for say, a family of five to get more than enough ice cream, but if you're wanting to use it for a party you'll definitely need more than one bowl.
As others have mentioned, the key to getting this to work is ensuring the mixing bowl is frozen solid and that the liquid ingredients for your ice cream mix are as cold as you can get them short of freezing. I have to say that no matter what I've tried, I can't get ice cream ready to serve in 20 minutes.
If I may, I'd like to make a suggestion that has worked very well for me. When I'm making ice cream, I pour half of the liquid ingredients into the mixing bowl. I put the other half in the freezer.
When the mix in the machine reaches the consistency of cake batter (usually in about ten minutes), I add the second half of the liquid. I let it run for another 20 minutes and voila! For the family members who like their ice cream a little firmer, 10 more minutes usually does the job. I don't know if this will work for you, but give it a shot.
I hope this review helped and that you have as much fun with this machine as our family has! It was definitely a worthwhile purchase.
Customer Review: This thing is fun, fun, fun!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Got his as a gift for Christmas...what a thoughtful friend! We live far out into the country and getting ice cream home during the summer is almost impossible..even with freezer bags, ice chests, etc, the store bought ice cream is often runny. We just got used to the idea that we could not have fancy grocery store ice cream during July and August :(
As long as you follow the instructions and keep the freezer bowl in the back of your freezer (I keep the bowl in our spare frig's top freezer, so it is not often opened), it makes decent soft serve ice cream. Take the time to read the other reviews and you can learn alot about how to operate this Cuisinart...it's very simple, but there are a few "tricks" to make it even easier.
The only additional advice I can add, is to buy the Ben and Jerry's ice cream recipe book with this and make some FANTASTIC ice cream. Just follow the instructions for making soft serve and after about 12 minutes, dump the soft serve into a tupperware bowl and freeze for a few hours - delicious!! The ice cream will taste as good (if not better) than the most expensive ice cream and costs very, very little.
This unit is simple and easy to operate. Making the ice cream mix is easy and cleanup is a snap.
Probably the nicest and most fun gift we have ever received!
Customer Review: Too much work for too little reward
Summary: 1 Stars
We got this as a present and while we very much appreciate the thought, the product itself is pretty bad. Here are our problems:
* As mentioned its all but impossible to get the bowl cold enough. We put ours in our chest freezer outside in our garage (its currently winter in Iowa - need I say more) for 24 hours. It was frozen solid but still never got the icecream anywhere near anything other than thick soup after 45 mins. And since the bowl has a hole in the bottom you can't take it out and put it in the freezer.
* The mixins shoot doesn't work well. If you are using mixins that aren't heavy (for instance crushed up oreos) they get stuck along the shoot and almost none make it to the icecream
* Clean up is a PAIN. Not only do you have to clean the bowl, the dasher, the lid, the mixin shoot, the drip tray, and the inside of the chamber where the bowl goes (which is NOT easy to get to much less clean) - you must do it all by hand.
This is something we may pull out once a year for the kids but its too much of a pain and works too poorly for anything else.
If you have a KitchenAid mixer, they offer a similar "frozen bowl" attachment with a dasher. We have this one and it works as it should, with MANY fewer parts to clean.
Customer Review: Easy to Make and Use Great Tasting Ice Cream
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great food machine purchase. I found it easy to use and clean. I read the instruction manual prior to using it to make sure I understood any warning or tips.
The best tip is to make sure your freezer bowl is frozen in advance. It has liquid inside that must freeze completely prior to use.
Here's my main thoughts on it:
I put the machine together in about 3 minutes.
I used the recipe booklet included to make my first batch of vanilla ice cream.
I like that it makes the recipes from scratch. I can use organic ingredients if I so desired.
I fed a family of three with the ice cream dispensed from it. We were all very happy with the results.
One thing I noticed is the size of the machine needs open space and may not fit under most counters.
If we didnt eat all the ice cream immediately, I place a tupperware bowl underneath the spout. Placed it in the freezer. It did not get hard after a few hours in the freezer. So it can be made ahead of time or during dinner.
I would recommend the machine to another person.
Cuisinart Ice-45 Mix-It-In Soft-Serve 1-1/2-Quart Ice-Cream Maker
Customer Review: Cool summer treats
Summary: 4 Stars
We bought this ice cream maker thinking we could use it for a big party we were having. It turns out that the freezer bowl will give you about 10 - 12 servings before it needs refreezing. So we opted not to use it for the party (not enough servings) but instead use it for our family.
I was a little apprehensive about buying this product since similar product reviews were none to flattering. This unit howover seems to work just fine.
The instructions claim that the ice cream is ready to serve in about 12 - 15 minutes but we found that 20 minutes was needed to reach the right consistency. But, once it's ready, the ice cream poured out perfectly (we even got the knack of twirling the column of ice cream into our cones). We've decided that the vanilla ice cream recipe is our family's favorite.
Clean up was a snap since all the parts can be easily removed and cleaned.
We tried the condiment dispensers and my kids loved it. We found that certain things don't work well if they aren't chopped finely or if they don't have a slippery surface (like m&m's). Otherwise, it's cool to have the 'extras' intermixed with the ice cream.
Overall, this product is nicely engineered and works very well.