This is a totally terrific ice cream maker! Easy to use, and fast yummy ice cream! You do need a good cold freezer however, as it is not electric. I would also recommend purchasing an additional freezer canister from the company, since one quart of yummy ice cream is never enough... especially if you have guests! Excellent & simple product.

Two years later, I still love this...!
However, last summer, I didn't use it, but lefty the freezer bowl in my freezer to be ready when needed... That was a year ago! Now I'm ready to make ice cream again. Took the bowl out to check for cleanliness, and noticed a "freezer odor" in the container!
I let it defrost, let it stand overnight with a baking soda solution filling the inside... still that odor!
QUESTION: how does one get rid of that freezer odor??? HELP...!!!

I absolutely LOVE this ice cream maker. My son and I used it for the first time tonight, following a recipe in the Donvier recipe book. Donvier Ice Cream: More Than 80 Recipes for Sorbets, Parfaits, and Frozen Drinks, with Light Variations It was *so* easy to use this machine, and my 11-yr-old had a ball helping out. Fast and super easy to use; the handle turns very easily, so long as you don't let it sit too long before giving it a couple turns. Have a timer ready and set it for 2 minutes.

I found that you must immediately start turning the handle once you put the mixture in the canister, just as it says to do in the manual. They weren't kidding. Lol. It needed turned before I could even fumble with the lid and handle to get them on. Thanks to the other reviewers who said to turn it more often in the beginning. This is a MUST, lest you break the plastic paddle. It's best to have everything ready before you start, and make sure you put the paddle in *before* you pour in the mixture.

What we did is to give it a couple turns every 30 seconds for the first few minutes. From there we went to once a minute for a few rounds and then about halfway through the entire cycle we only turned it once every 2 minutes. It took slightly longer than 20 minutes to get it to soft-serve consistency, but that's because I took the lid off a few times during the first several minutes to scrape the ice cream off the paddle, as it built up on the paddle very quickly in the beginning. I don't think this is necessary, but it didn't hurt anything to scrape (with a rubber spatula, of course); it just took a few minutes longer to freeze overall.

I had to turn it counter-clockwise a bit several times in the beginning because it was giving too much resistance going clockwise. I just kind of went back and forth to get it unstuck. It should be done gently, but not too gently; you don't want to break it, but if you don't give it a little effort then you won't push through that initial resistance. There's a very fine line with how hard you can push it; when in doubt, go counter-clockwise for half a turn or so and then go clockwise for a couple turns. Rock it back and forth a few times, if needed, to get it going.

It's HIGHLY unlikely that I will *ever* buy store-bought ice cream again. I was buying Alden's organic and it was super expensive and they used thickeners and stabilizers (albeit from natural sources), AND they didn't have strawberry or any other really cool flavors like we can create at home. I can't wait to make my own healthier and organic version of Cherry Garcia. Tonight we made mixed-berry ice cream and it was so good. We followed the recipe for strawberry ice cream (from that recipe book) as a starting point. I just wish I had added chunks of chocolate. Hehe..

My little boy is so happy we got this machine, and swears that it will be an heirloom one day. He's right about that, as I can see how this gadget will last for many many years when taken care of properly. He'll definitely have rights to it when I'm gone from this world and I'm sure he'll hand it down to one of his kids.

I guess it would have been nice if it made more than one quart so that we didn't have to make it so often, but that's okay. All told, it took about an hour for prep, cranking, and cleaning up. It would be less than that for vanilla (no cook) ice cream, as there wouldn't be a need for using the blender (and cleaning it afterward). If you plan to do anything except the most basic vanilla ice cream, you'll need some other kitchen equipment (which most people already have): a saucepan and whisk for basic custard recipes; a blender or food processor for most of the others that contain fruit. A sifter or sieve would be helpful if using cocoa powder or powdered confectioner's sugar (aka "icing sugar" in the manual, aka 10x sugar). A sieve is useful because you can also use it to strain out seeds from fruit if you don't like their texture.

The manual that comes with it was a bit of a disappointment, in that there are only just so many recipes compared to the one recipe book above, but it makes up for it by giving frozen yogurt and gelato recipes, which the book doesn't have, and the recipes it does contain are sufficient to get started. I would definitely recommend the recipe book to go along with the machine's manual, though. You can pick up a used copy for $4 with shipping. I preferred to have one in better condition, so I paid much more than 1 cent for it, but that's not necessary if you don't mind some underlining.

Highly recommended item. I doubt you will be disappointed unless you break the paddle or don't keep the canister in the freezer long enough (I'm going to store mine permanently in my extra freezer to avoid that issue). Just follow the reviewer's techniques for stirring often enough in the beginning, and the manual's hints for using the machine in general, and you should be satisfied. It *does* make a soft-serve consistency, so make sure to freeze it for a few hours or overnight if that doesn't suit you, depending on how hard you like your ice cream.

If you don't like the texture or consistency of uncooked ice cream, then use the recipes that have eggs in them, which will produce a custard-type of ice cream (that you have to cook and then chill overnight). Adding egg whites or some white GMO-free corn syrup (or honey, perhaps?) will help to keep it smoother if you plan to keep it in the freezer longer than a few days. Also, if the stored ice cream is too hard to get out of your container (I used a one-quart glass pyrex dish with a lid), the recipe book says to put the container in the fridge for about a half hour before serving.

I didn't want to take 10 minutes for cooking a custard, but I did take a minute or so to improve the finished texture by quickly heating a small amount of the milk (1/3 c or so) with the full amount of the sugar (2/3 c) so that my organic sugar would be dissolved (it's larger in grain size than bleached white sugar). I didn't feel the need to chill the mixture first before adding it to the frozen canister. Perhaps if I had, then I wouldn't have had to freeze/crank it so long, but I think it equaled out in time spent overall making the batch. Like I said, it was very easy to turn the handle, so having to spend a few more minutes in freezing time was no big deal (except that I wanted to start eating it right when the mixture started forming into ice cream!). Definitely a good exercise in patience and will-power. Lol.

Everything that needs to be said about this device is actually printed in the little booklet that comes with it. If you don't follow the suggestions in it, you probably won't be happy with the results. It really does help to freeze the tub overnight. If you're making ice cream, you have to plan ahead, make the custard, and chill the mixture for several hours before you make the ice cream. The packaging materials might lead you to believe that you can make ice cream anytime, at a moment's notice, but ice cream doesn't work that way. Sorbets you can do without much planning, but anything that needs to be cooked and chilled first will take planning. But it's worth it.

I'm not convinced that the comments about the temperature setting of the freezer are very important -- if your freezer keeps ice cubes frozen, then it's cold enough. Just leave your tub in there overnight.

One screw-up I made was to pour the ice cream mixture in without putting the paddle in first. That's an error that is almost impossible to reverse without making a huge mess, because the paddle simply will not go into place once you've poured custard into the frozen tub.