Black & Decker IC200 Arctic Twister Ice Cream Mixer

by Black & Decker

Product Features

• Turns store-bought ice cream into soft-serve
• Mixes toppings of your choice into ice cream: nuts, candy, cookies, fruit, granola
• Swirls enough for 3 cones in one run
• Components are dishwasher-safe (top rack only)
• One-year limited warranty

Product Details

Product Manual [479kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 14.6 x 12.2 x 11.5 inches ; 7 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000063XHF
• Item model number: IC200
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,476 in Kitchen & Dining (See Top 100 in Kitchen & Dining)

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Rather than heading down to the local Dairy Queen for a soft-serve cone, use the Arctic Twister to make custom soft-serve ice cream at home. Using the Arctic Twister is not as ambitious as making ice cream from scratch: simply buy your favorite ice cream, sherbet, or frozen yogurt and swirl in the toppings of your choice to make your own original flavor. The dispenser can handle almost any topping you can think up, from the healthy (nuts, granola, fruit, and cereal) to the decadent (sprinkles, chocolate chips, M&Ms, cookies, and candy bars).

Once the five pieces of this easy-to-assemble appliance are in place, remove the lid and layer your ice cream with candy, nuts, etc. Replace the lid, turn on the power, and start pumping the handle on the lid to get your ice cream churning. But don't delay in getting your cone positioned under the spout--once your soft-serve treat begins spiraling out, you want to be ready to catch it. In one run, the dispenser twirls enough ice cream for three cups, cones, or bowls. Cleanup is easy as all components of the dispenser are plastic and safe to wash in the top rack of the dishwasher. A great dessert idea for kids' parties, ice-cream socials, or summer picnics, the Arctic Twister is covered by a one-year limited warranty. --Cristina Vaamonde

Product Description

Take your favorite ice cream, low fat frozen yogurt or sherbet and customize it with your choice of mix-ins! Crush and mix in the goodies of your choice by pressing down the lever. Add chips, nuts, granola, dried apricots, cookes and more! Create an instant soft serve treat which is then exuded right into a cone or cup.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but could use improvements, February 9, 2003

By 

Alice Johnsom (Gilroy, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black & Decker IC200 Arctic Twister Ice Cream Mixer (Kitchen)

I read the reviews before purchasing it, and was pleasantly surprised when I tried it out. The ice cream came out easily firm enough for cones.

Suggestions for using:
1) place parts in freezer 10-15 min. before use
2) put toppings in freezer before using (if the toppings are warm they will melt the ice cream as they are mixing)
3) Buy a half-gallon of ice cream in the rectangular carton, open it up and use a butcher knife to quickly chop the ice cream into cubes to put into the machine (doesn't take long, so the ice cream is not too soft)--note: you can just fold the box back up and put it in a freezer bag when putting it away
4) rinse the parts immediately after use--easy clean-up
5) I make ice cream for my family, and then I eat the ice cream off of the "dasher" that everyone is complaining about (It is not sharp, and you can hold it like a big popsicle, and then not much is wasted)

Improvements Needed:
1) It mixes the ice cream a little slowly
2) It would be easier if the on/off switch didn't have to be held down constantly

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars great idea, horrible execution, January 7, 2003

By 

Chel Micheline "Chel Micheline" (Southwest Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black & Decker IC200 Arctic Twister Ice Cream Mixer (Kitchen)

I got this for Christmas and while I use it every night, and *really* like the ice cream/topping combos that come out, the design of the product is really terrible.

The pros: Does a great job of mixing the ice cream and the toppings together, and makes even the most low-fat, sugar-free ice creams taste amazing. Unlike other reviewers- I found it incredibly easy to clean- I just pull out the pump and and the "grinder" from the base and put it in the top shelf of the dishwasher. No ice cream gets on the base or motor. I've been able to make a serving without assistance- pushing on a lever and pressing a button doesn't require another person.

The cons: the design of this machine is terrible. Half of your ice cream disappears- I'm not sure if the ice cream is super compressed in the machine or what, but if you put in a normal serving of ice cream, you will only get 25% of it out, even after scraping down the parts. The way the machine works is that a pump pushes the ice cream down to a spinning grinder, which blends the ice cream with the toppings. Most of the ice cream winds up stuck to the grinder part, as there is no machanism that scrapes it and pushes it out. After you are done extracting the ice cream from the machine, you have to pull the grinder off and scrape it down to get most of your dessert. By that time it's more the texture of a "Blizzard" than soft serve. Because the grinder piece is so weirdly designed, there's no way to get all the ice cream off it it, even with a tiny spatula. It's a waste of food.

If you are okay with wasting a lot of ice cream, and don't mind manually scraping the grinder once you are done, then go ahead and buy this.The results *are* delicious, despite the work involved with actually getting them in a dish! I just don't understand why an engineer at Black and Decker couldn't come up with a machine that blends ice cream and then uses a pump to extract it all from the machine.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor Descriptoin, January 12, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Black & Decker IC200 Arctic Twister Ice Cream Mixer (Kitchen)

Although this machine does indeed make hard ice cream soft, you need to use a pint of ice cream to get two cones. The rest of the ice cream remains on the blade and you practically have to eat if off there.
The ice cream also has to be extremely hard or it will be liquified.
The on/off switch has to be depressed constantly, because as soon as you release the switch the machine goes off. The machine also has to be operated by two persons, because of the hardness of the on/off switch.
For me this was a very bad buy. I used it just once and never will again. For me it was a waste of money.