Customer Reviews

Aroma AIC-204EM 4-Quart Wood-Barrel Ice-Cream Maker, Natural Wood

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I was actually searching for other customer reviews in hopes of finding some helpful hints for this contraption. We purchased this product at Target about a year ago because we had relatives who had such good luck with their old fashioned crank-style ice cream churns. We liked the classic design and the electric mixing option. But we've had quite a bit of difficulty with this. The electric mixer seems to mix the cream too fast--often producing an almost "foamy" result. The crank method produces better results, but the crank mixing mechanism makes a lot of noise and doesn't work smoothly...and it takes a looong time for the ice cream to freeze (over 45 minutes for just a small batch--our salt/ice mixture tested 25 degrees). I was hoping I would find some positive reviews that would be helpful...but we bought a Cuisinart 2 qt. electric Ice Cream Maker tonight instead. :-( Anyone with positive experiences, please review as we'd be happy to dig this thing out and use it for company if we could know there was a way to get good ice cream in the end! Otherwise, I'm afraid that this product had a lot of potential, but is rather impractical--especially considering the fact that more user-friendly electric ice cream machines can be bought at a similar price.

The electric motor broke down after 5 uses. Buy this only if you want a hand-crank!

What a huge disappointment. I bought one of these at a local store last week and returned it. It looks good. The aluminum container is relatively heavy gauge. The motor is simply not up to the task and the manual crank is poor. The motor stopped but the ice cream was still liquid.

The Aroma ice cream maker is an attractive machine. I like it and have only used the electric part to make cream. I am satisfied with how it is made. But the motor is not very strong and will stop turning when the cream starts to get hard. If you let it sit for an hour or more it will begin to hardened. But if you want to eat it after the motor stops, it will be like a milk shake.

I thought purchasing a more expensive ice cream maker meant that I would be buying better quality. This machine has stopped in the middle of churning every time I have made ice cream. Very frustrating.

We love our icecream maker! It is great to be able to choose from hand crank or automatic. When using the automated churner the motor stops automatically when the icecream is done churning so you have to keep and eye on the icecream maker. The kids love to hand crank it but get tired before the icecream is done. We use the vanilla ice cream recipe to make all our icecream we just add flavored milk from a local dairy to flavor it. We have made rootbeer, strawberry, and cotton candy icecream so far and look forward to making banana, coffee, and chocolate soon.

This is the ideal home and small business ice-cream maker. Leaves the ice-cream so smooth that it disolves in your mouth with a sensation that cannot be imagine only feel. Easy to operate. Easy to use.

I see this has already received poor reviews, but mine has failed in a new way, so I figured I should add my complaints just in case anyone was still thinking about buying one of these.

I bought this last summer and have made 3 successful batches of ice cream, although I found the other problems already mentioned in other reviews to be true to varying degrees. The motor didn't stop right away like it has for others, but when it eventually did, the ice cream was still very soft. The hand crank was more or less worthless because the internal gears are plastic and they slip when there is any significant resistance. On the 4th batch of ice cream, the aluminum bucket got a hole in the bottom, which caused the ice cream to get salt water mixed in it so it tasted terrible and never froze. The bucket is also starting to leak a good deal of water, although I could overlook that if not for the other problems.

To summarize, I'd have been far better off buying $50 worth of very expensive ice cream.

Are the materials cheaply produced? When we took it out of the box, we were blown over by the chemical smell. After soaking the wooden tub, it went away, but my sinuses were burning by then.

Then we made the ice cream and that part was fun. But the motor stopped before the ice cream was frozen. Also, a disappointing thing happened - I could taste an aluminum aftertaste in the ice cream from the aluminum bowl. The ice cream literally tasted like aluminum foil. We have to take this back for a refund. We are looking for one with a steel bowl now.

Overall, a disappointing experience. I gave it one star because that was the only way to proceed making the review.

Everything is good except the motor. Thr first batch of ice cream did not freeze before the motor cut off. Second batch of ice cream was even worse. The motor stopped working before the batch started to thicken. Aroma needs to work on the motor!!! My average cost per gallon of ice cream was in excess of $50 per gallon.

I would not recommend this product to anyone.