CuisinartAutomatic Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker (Pink)

One button, on or off. Too simple. Cook up your fav gelato, ice cream or other frozen dessert recipe. Chill your cooked batch overnight in fridge. Keep the Cuisinart bucket in the freezer overnight. Fill it up with your chilled mix, turn it on and come back in fifteen minutes. Too easy. It's done when the ice cream is so cold it won't churn around anymore. The bigger choices are the recipes, but this machine will make it all. Forget wasting your time with machines with too many buttons and sensors, this machine works - it's simple and to the point and will probably last three decades. The recommended volumes in the Cusinart recipes are about 30% too much material and will overflow a bit, but it's easy to clean up and adjust the volumes for the next batch. Take notes. Lots of good recipe ideas on the web. There's even Marcella Hazan gelato recipes available online (in her book too.) Things to consider - how much fat to use, all milk, or half milk with half and half, or milk and full cream. They will all work. Baker's sugar is super smooth, especially when beaten into farm fresh egg yolks. The better the vanilla, the better the flavor. Vanilla paste from Madagascar rocks. For chocolate, Valronha Feves Guanja and Valrhona Dutch Process Cocoa will beat any chocolate dessert you have ever tasted. I promise you will never go back to the grocery store "gourmet" ice creams which are loaded up with cheap ingredients, fillers etc. Homemade is so superior. Go for it and have fun. To store in freezer, I use the paper One - Pint Frozen Dessert Containers with Lids. Fold up some wax paper and put it on top of the ice cream to prevent crystalizing. Put the whole container in a plastic bag with a tie, so that when you open and close the freezer, it stays super cold and doesn't crystalize on the outside. For the truly obsessed cooks, here's my version of Vanilla Gelato: 325g whole milk - 325g half and half - 50g really thick Icelandic yogurt - 145g bakers sugar - 2 tsp. madagascar vanilla paste - 5 egg yolks - separate the egg yolks, put in bowl, gently whisk in baker's sugar, don't over mix; mix the milk, half and half, yogurt and vanilla together and heat up to about 150 degrees in a good double boiler, stir so it doesn't stick but not too much or it will take forever to warm up; take off heat; slowly add in about a half cup at a time while stirring the eggs, not too much too fast or your will ruin the eggs, then put the mixture back in the double boiler and bring to 165 degrees - not higher - take off the heat immediately, put into a bowl with a good lid - set bowl in some ice water to cool it down quickly. Then put the bowl in the fridge overnight. The Cuisinart mix bowl goes in the freezer overnight. Put it in a clean plastic bag to keep crystals out. Next day, set up the Cuisinart with freezer bowl, pour in chilled mix, let it spin. Mine takes twelve minutes to make. It's done when the gelato stops churning because it is soft frozen. Scoop it into the paper containers with wax paper on top. Makes two pints. Ok, real Italian gelato does not use cream, yogurt or eggs, this is just my version. The amount fills the Cuisinart up without overflowing. You can use only milk, or heavy cream instead of half and half. More or less sugar to your taste. If you don't use the egg yolks, you won't have to mess with the double boiler, but then it won't have the deep crazy good custard flavor. I have tried lots of fancy vanilla pastes. While I can't promote who makes the best, lets just say look for N & M. For the chocoholics - add 70g of melted 70% great chocolate into the warm milk mix plus 42g of Dutch Process cocoa powder. Just don't blame me if you get addicted. Ciao...

I love this ice cream maker! So far, I've only made vanilla ice cream, but plan to make some different flavors very soon. The vanilla ice cream was simply delicious! I like it that you can control what is in your ice cream...or yogurt, etc. I feel that makes it a healthier choice. It's also more economical. I compared the cost with a major brand, and yes, it will save money if you make it yourself.It's super easy to make ice cream with this machine. You do need to be sure the bowl is frozen ahead of time. I just wash the bowl, dry it well, and keep it in the back of the freezer...that way it's always ready. If someone wanted to, they could purchase an additional bowl, but I myself am fine with just the single bowl....at least, for now. It's easy to clean everything, which is another plus. I don't like things that are difficult to clean, so it just makes it really nice to be able to clean it easily.One thing I learned is that it's helpful if you have some good containers to store the ice cream, yogurt, etc. in, so I purchased some ahead of using the machine.These are the ones I got, and they work great: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHPVVW2J?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1I also got these, but haven't used them yet: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079HSST6M?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

Received this item a month or two ago, and it took me a few weeks to finally use it because I thought it would be such a confusing process to make ice cream. I had read that you had to make sure the bowl was frozen for at least 16-24 hours and all the recipes for making the ice cream mixture seemed fairly intensive. Plus you would need to chill the mixture for hours. Well, depending on what kind of ice cream you're making it can be a really simple and quick process (besides letting the bowl sit in the freezer for the required time) and this ice cream maker turns out unbelievably awesome ice cream. There's only so much I can say about the ice cream maker itself because a lot of it has to do with how well you make your mixture. I can say that it does a fantastic job with the things I've created so far.I am trying to get away from "dieting" and move to a lifestyle that just incorporates good tasting but healthy foods and this device has really taken that to a whole new level. I can now eat ice cream/frozen yogurt every single day and not have to worry about the guilt that typically came with eating store bought, high calorie ice cream. As long as you make a good ice cream mixture this machine will do the rest.One of my favorite recipes so far has been chocolate, peanut butter, blueberry, strawberry ice cream. The ingredients are:1 cup of Fage 0% fat Greek Yogurt (tons of protein low in carbs)2 cups of almond milk (has like 30-40 calories per cup I think)2 heaping scoops of Designer Whey Chocolate Protein powder3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder2 tablespoons of Truvia (any kind of sweetener will do I guess)1 heaping tablespoon of natural peanut butter4-6 frozen strawberriesabout a half cup to a cup of frozen blueberries4-6 ice cubes (to ensure that the mixture will be really cold instead of having to freeze it for a while)I just throw all of that into a blender until mixed thoroughly, then turn on the ice cream maker and pour the mixture in while it's turning. In 10-15 minutes you'll have ice cream/frozen yogurt that is amazing. In my opinion it's better than most of the brands I would buy at the store except for Haagen-Daz which is like the Rolls-Royce of ice creams to me lol. You can pretty much do whatever you want in terms of making your own mix but for me the greek yogurt and almond milk base is the easiest thing. You can put whatever else you want in it like frozen fruits or other things to create whatever flavors you want, then blend it and pour it in. Plus... there's Google. You can google recipes all day or search Youtube for easy to follow videos.I can't recommend this product enough. I cannot attest to its durability because I've only had it a month or two, but as long as it holds up I think this is a great product for anyone that wants to make homemade ice cream. And it is especially great for people looking to find ways to eat healthy and not have to deprive themselves of something as awesome as ice cream.p.s. I also bought a second freezer bowl, so I don't have to limit myself to making this just once a day. Well worth it in my opinion, especially if you have guests.