Cuisinart Automatic Frozen Yogurt, Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker

...or later, pair with dark-dark chocolate sorbet to make a frozen Mounds bar parfait. The Persian Melon sorbet was a mind-blower, too -- maybe the best fruit sorbet I've ever had. Hmmm...but the red and black raspberry with a hint of Chambord makes me nearly swoon. In short -- a great little appliance, lots of fun, and truly remarkable results. It is not excessively noisy -- no more so than a food processor, though it does run for 20 minutes at a time. Easy to clean. I am using it a couple times a week, making sorbets and ice milks. The tastes of homemade fruit sorbets are so fresh and intense that I can't eat a pint at a sitting -- unlike the commercial garbage -- and I'm actually losing a bit of weight. You just have to plan ahead a few hours and figure out the fine points: 1) Make sure the freezer bowl is totally frozen, and don't try to short-cut the 24 hours in a deep dark corner of the freezer. I recommend getting an extra freezer bowl, btw. You'll get inspired very easily. What to do with those dead-ripe peaches... 1.5 quart size is perfect for one or two people, especially if you want to experiment with different flavors every few days. 2) If you only make a small amount (2-3 cups liquid) it may freeze quite firm as it churns, but generally you'll want to pack it and freeze it for an hour or more before serving. While churning, I also put a small plastic lid over the pour-spout and wrap a loose towel around the upper bowl/dome to insulate and keep it cold. At 25 minutes, it's time to stop. Won't be getting much firmer, and may start to soften as the freezer bowl thaws. 3) The recipes in the booklet are a good start, however I do not bother to strain the fruit through cheesecloth. I mash or food process it with just a little boiling water and let it drip through a medium-gauge strainer or fine colander -- with soft fruit, I don't strain it at all. Also, I have found that using superfine or "baker's" sugar rather than simple syrup (sugar-water) makes a thicker, more intense flavored sorbet that freezes better. (Use a little good quality jelly to add new flavor twists.) Mix the sugar with your fruit, juice, cocoa or whatever and then add a little more water or juice as needed for taste/volume. Do chill it in the fridge for at least 1-2 hours, or in the freezer for 30 min. Things taste sweeter when they freeze, so aim for a just-barely-sweet-enough ice-cold liquid mixture. 4) Don't overfill. Freezing and churning expand the contents, so never go over 4 cups of liquid in a 1.5 Qt container. Whatever churns above the rim will not freeze well and will soften everything else. If that happens, scoop off the overflow and freeze it separately. Or... eat it up. I swear to you, fresh coconut sorbet for breakfast is so decadent... No, refreshing! I meant refreshing. 5) One way to control how hard it ultimately freezes is by adding a teaspoon of liquor to the blend. If the mixture is cream-based or rich like coconut, this isn't really needed. My first two sorbets (mango and peach) froze to rock-hard texture. One tsp of vodka per 3-4 cups fruit/liquid, or a flavored liqueur, won't interfere with the churning freeze, but will prevent the final product from becoming impenetrable once packed away. DON'T overdo, use a scant tsp per quart of mixture - a Tablespoon of chocolate liqueur was way too much on my first try, and I ended up with this glorious thick half-frozen dark chocolate fudgy goo. Tsk. Indulge yourself.

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 got this ice cream maker because I wanted to make flavors I can't get in the stores, like Green Tea Ice cream. Making your own ice cream is a great way to make it as rich or as simple as you want, or as guilt-free as you want, too. I've never made my own ice cream before this, and I was a bit nervous about buying another appliance just for this, but I really like Green Tea ice cream and the store bought stuff just wasn't hitting the spot. Anyway, after reading the reviews on several ice cream makers, this model appeared to be the best overall for value/cost and ease of use. It was also said to be not as noisy as the others. Once I got it and made my first batch, I was amazed at how easy it was to use. I followed the directions, as well as read the helpful reviews here that had a lot of good tips, the main one being to make sure that your bucket is frozen solid, at least 24 hours, and that your ice cream base mixture has been chilled to be as cold as possible. My first batch only took 12 minutes, much quicker than I thought it would be. I didn't find it to be noisy at all when running, I could certainly talk, and hear over it - it's just a mechanical hum noise, and it's not on that long. One tip, get a plastic or nylon, NOT silicone or metal, scraper to scrape the sides and bottom of the canister to get the rest of your ice cream out. I say no silicone because it's too soft to scrape the sides effectively. Most of the ice cream is like soft-serve, but the sides and bottom will have a layer of hard frozen ice cream. I use a Cuisinart pot scraper that's handheld, no handle, and it has a rubber edge and a nylon edge. The nylon edge easily scrapes off all the ice cream from the sides and bottom. Clean up is extremely easy, everything washed by hand. The ice canister will still be frozen and you can wash it out and put it back in the freezer so you can make another batch sooner, but it has to be dry of all water before you put it back in the freezer. This isn't easy to do when you rinse it out and the remaining water freezes right away before you have a chance to wipe it dry. I just wash it and air dry it, it thaws out, but I only make one batch at a time anyway. Once dry, I do keep my ice canister in the freezer so that it's ready to make ice cream whenever I want, but that's something that's optional depending on how much room you have in the freezer. Overall, I'm glad I got this model. I was lucky to get it on sale at $49, and it's worth it at that price. The other models that have the freezer motor in them are more convenient in that you don't have to worry about freezing the canister in the freezer ahead of time, but the cost is much more expensive, and the appliance is much larger than this one. For a small family of occasional ice cream eaters, a quart at a time, this ice cream maker is perfect.

Update: I tried to use this ice cream maker a few days ago and it wouldn't freeze my recipe. Since other items in freezer were frozen, I assumed the freezer bowl had stopped working so I posted a negative portion to my review. When I buy a pound of bacon, I roll each slice like a jelly roll and freeze the rolls. They don't take up so much room that way and they thaw in a couple minutes. So I put a tray of rolled bacon in the freezer and it didn't freeze. True bacon has a high fat content but in a zero degrees freezer, the bacon should freeze. So on Amazon I hopped and bought two fridg/freezer thermometers to check the temp in my freezer. I wanted two so that if they were near the same temp then I'd feel they were working okay (then I'd have one for the fridge). I bought these: amazon.com/gp/product/B071F5MD27/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I don't know why this doesn't appear as a link like they usually do but the item # is B071F5MD27 Turns out my freezer had warmed up to 21 degrees according to one themometer and 22 to the other (I can live with a one degree difference since it isn't possible to put both thermometers in the same exact location in freezer). The story continues but I won't bore you all with additional details but once properly frozen the ice cream maker bowl did work (I made a bowl while ago). So I deleted that negative portion of my review and now assure readers that I'm back to supporting my original review below. Should I actually have any additional problems with this maker, I'll come back. I do recommend checking temps in freezers/fridgs since had I not put the bacon in the freezer, frozen food would have stayed frozen but the freezer wasn't cold enough to freeze certain items like bacon or this ice cream maker bowl. Original review: I've owned this Cuisinart ICE-21PK Frozen-Yogurt, Ice Cream maker long enough to have made a half dozen quarts of ice cream. Since I'm the only person eating it, that is a lot of ice cream, I'm thinking!! There is a lot to like about this little freezer and topping that list is that I know what is going into the ice cream. And even using quality ingredients, it is cost efficient especially since I bought organic ice cream which is a lot more than regular ice cream. I've made vanilla, strawberry, chocolate and various fruit ice creams using the recipe book that comes with the freezer. For the fruit ice creams, I simply add a berry mix (for example) in the same amount as strawberries are called for in that ice cream recipe. So far, all have turned out firmly frozen and they stayed frozen until eaten but not so hard frozen one has to chisel it out of the container! I already owned the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream book and the only difference in the basic recipes for the ice cream maker is that Ben & Jerry's calls for whole eggs and the Cuisinart recipes do not. I looked up a peach ice cream recipe on-line and that recipe called for two egg yolks. I intend to add eggs to the next batch and if they make a great difference I'll post about that later but I imagine the eggs just add extra texture but can be left out if one has qualms about eating raw egg. All my ice creams have been super great without the egg. Keep in mind however that most bacteria, etc. will not survive freezing. I purchased the smaller quart & a half size since that makes 5 cups which will last me for a few days. I also wanted the pink freezer since it looks like ice cream! The round circular part seen in the photo has to be frozen for 24 hours before use so if one does not have a freezer, one will need to set aside that much space in their refrigerator freezer for that period. I have an upright freezer so as soon as I clean mine up from freezing a batch, I just put it back in the freezer and it stays there until I use it again. Clean-up is a breeze. Instructions for use are well explained and are simple. Two minutes and the ice cream is churning away. Mine usually freezes in 15 minutes. This is a great little ice cream maker and I'm so glad to own it. I love the ice cream I make especially since I know it is healthy, at least for a sugared item :))

BEST THING EVER, since chocolate and strawberries! For around $79 I bought myself something that works so well that does all by it's self! It so simple to use. Affordable ice-cream maker, looks really nice and ice-cream taste absolutely delicious! (KEEP IN MIND THAT YOU FREEZE THE BOWL OVER NIGHT. I USE A POT HOLDER TO CARRY BOWL AS IT'S WAY TOO COLD. PLACE THE WHITE BIG BEATER YOU JUST SET IT INSIDE OF BOWL AND PUT CLEAR COVER OVER IT. THEN POUR IN MIXTURE AND TURN ON. EASY PEASY WAIT AT 10 MINS AND CHECK. YOU FIND THAT IT MAKES DELICIOUS ICE-CREAM IN RECORD TIME! THEN YOU GET TO TASTE THE DELICIOUS FLAVOR! OH, IT'S SO GOOD. MR. FOODS WOULD PROBABLY SAY, "OH IT'S SO GOOD! KEEP IN MIND THAT THE BEATER DOESN'T ROTATE THE BOWL DOES. SMOOTH DELICIOUS IN NO TIME AT ALL. LAST BATCH WAS A LITTLE BUMPY BUT THAT WAS MY FAULT. I DIDN'T GET IT STIRED COMPLETELY. I WAS TO EXCITED TO EAT ICE-CREAM THAT I MADE MYSELF. I ACTUALLY BOUGHT A BAG OF, SOFT SERVE VANILLA ICE-CREAM AND I THINK IT VERY COST FRIENDLY AND DELICIOUS! I CAN'T SAY DELICIOUS ENOUGH! NOISE LEVEL IS NO LOUDER THAN VACUUM CLEANER, FOOD PROCESSOR AND DOESN'T BROTHER ME AT ALL. LOOK WHAT YOU GET IN RETURN! THIS ICE-CREAM MAKER HOLDS 1 1/2 QUARTS PERFECT!) OH and I use milk and not water. My first try using water turned out horrible and not want to eat it. So I recommend milk. SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?

I have always wanted to try to make homemade ice cream. The reviews were good and the price was right. I made vanilla ice cream - delicious!! I did see complaints about no instructions or recipes but they sent a barcode to scan with your phone. Most companies are doing this now. Easy instructions and lots of recipes. I included a picture of the barcode.

This is a great little ice cream maker for my purposes eating carnivore. It’s a little noisy, sounds a bit like an older bread machine that self kneads the dough. It’s not the worst, especially for the amazing end result. ***MAKE SURE THE MIXING PADDLE IS ALREADY IN THE MACHINE AND THE MACHINE IS TURNED ON BEFORE POURING ANYTHING IN*** There is definitely a learning curve with it. I’m using it for a sugar free keto/carnivore ice cream recipe (2 cups heavy cream+5 egg yolks+vanilla extract+some stevia sweetener). Do yourself a favor fellow carnivores and thoroughly beat all your ingredients with a hand mixer for a few minutes until smooth, THEN pour it into the ice cream machine. It comes out DELICIOUS and creamy, better than anything store bought. I had perfect frozen custard within about 12 minutes, and the ice cream barrel had been in the freezer for about 17 hours before I placed it on the machine. Just shake it first to make sure it’s frozen solid and there’s no sloshing within the barrel. It gets a really even cold surface and evenly freezes the ingredients, awesome end result for a budget ice cream maker. Since you can’t put the barrel in the dishwasher, Easiest way I’ve found to clean it is just let it sit out for a few hours to melt all the residue off the sides, then wash it out with antibacterial dawn. Let the churning paddle sit in the barrel full of soapy water and swish it around to clean it simultaneously, then dry it off and pop it back in the freezer so it’s ready next time you’re wanting a frozen treat. My only gripe with it is that the churning paddle is plastic, would’ve preferred metal, but it works well enough once locked into place.

Works well. Easy to use. Good texture. Quick. I keep the center part in freezer. Holds a pint of ice cream in it...so you aren't wasting a ton of freezer space.