Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1809 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Brand: Cuisinart
• Model: ICE50BCU

Manufacturer's Description
The stylish stainless steel Cuisinart Ice Cream Professional is extremely easy to use. The professional compressor system means there is no need to pre-freeze the bowl, creating delicious gourmet quality ice cream, frozen yoghurts and refreshing sorbets. Fully automatic, simply fill the bowl and switch on! The unit will turn itself off when the cycle is complete. The open window allows ingredients to be added while in motion, such as fresh fruit or chocolate chips. With the Ice Cream Professional, you will be able to create amazing frozen deserts with healthy and fresh ingredients.

About Cuisinart
Originally a French company, Cuisinart became the leading exclusive merchandise brand in the US and is now in the UK. In 1973 Cuisinart's legendary food processor became the definitive food preparation machine for American chefs. Continuous development since then has broadened the Cuisinart range of kitchen equipment to include innovative and state of the art products.

The Cuisinart Guarantee
All Cuisinart products are engineered to last. They are thoroughly tested and quality checked three times before being released. This is why Cuisinart has a unique (and free) extended guarantee policy. But, if for any reason a product or part develops a fault (under normal domestic use) during the guarantee period, we will replace it immediately. At Cuisinart we believe that a repaired product is never the same again.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Excellent
***

Having deliberated long and hard over which machine to buy, we were initially favouring the Gaggia (based on many positive reviews) but got the opportunity to buy this at £70 or so less than the Gaggia.

So, we took the plunge and I have to say it is spot on. I have seen one review which complained of this machine cutting out when the consistency reached a certain point but this sounds like a good safeguard to me. Besides, if you want it rock hard, then you would have to freeze it separately anyway - I fail to see how you can have the paddle mix it when it is solid.

There are some recipes included and the vanilla is pretty much identical to the one in Ben & Jerry's recipe book. All the vanilla recipes we have seen said to use vanilla extract so we did, but this is expensive compared to vanilla flavouring or essence. So we tried vanilla flavouring instead and a more sensitive palette may indeed discern between them, but we couldn't - that's the norm for us now. We have used strawberry flavouring and banana flavouring too and they are both spot on. We've also made grapefruit by using 125 ml of grapefruit juice and 300 ml milk in place of the 425 ml milk, then mixed the chopped grapefruit segments at the end - if you like grapefruit, this tastes unbelievable.

It is a doddle to use, too - mix your stuff, put it in the bowl, decide what consistency you want (this is only so you can set the timer to the desired duration) and switch on. All that remains then is to wait for the 'ding' and make sure you get to it before anyone else does.

The capacity of this machine is very good too, making 1.6 litres which is around 3 pints - this is more than most other makes. This sounded a lot to us at first but we soon discovered that it actually doesn't go very far once people know there's some to be had. We always intend to freeze some but there's never any left to freeze.

We have used our machine quite a bit already and it is superb, as are the results. Everyone who has tried any raves about it, then comes back for more.

A word of caution, though - watch the calories; the output from this machine is so good, moderation really is a struggle.

***

Beautiful ice cream
I have owned this machine for a few months and am very happy with the results. The recipe book that comes with the machine contains a reasonable number of recipes and, after trying vanilla, I decided to experiment! Blueberry ice creams is fantastic (I just liquidised and strained two punnets of blueberries with a small amount of apple juice and substituted the mix for the milk in the vanilla recipe) and did the same with Raspberries. Have also made honey ice cream (vanilla recipe again, this time leaving out the sugar and adding 200g or so of honey), which was fragrant and delicious. It seems you can make lovely ice cream with minimum fuss, to the extent that I no longer purchase ice cream at all.

The machine is noisy, there's no getting away from that and it is better to leave it to work its magic whilst you are in another room. But the ping when it finishes is loud enough to alert you when the cycle is completed.

I've given it four stars as it is expensive but the results are worth it and it is incredibly easy to use.

This is the one to buy
I spent hours scouring the internet and reviews both in the UK and the US before finally buying this fabulous product. The main considerations for me were 1. quality of the machine (sturdy/unlikely to fall to pieces after two uses) 2. ease of use 3. no need to freeze any parts in advance 4. no need to add vodka to the bowl every time you used it (like apparently the Gaggia). Amazon delivered this item on time with the usual amazing logistical efficiency that makes them my number one choice for buying anything on the internet. We let the product sit for 24 hours and have been churning away ever since. I bought a couple of books with this but the one I like the most is the ultimate ice cream book by bruce weinstein which is all you need to figure it out (includes sorbets, granitas, yogurt etc.). This is a really fantastic machine. Buy it and have a great time.