CuisinartIce Cream Maker Machine, 1.5 Quart Double Insulated Machine, Sorbet and Frozen Yogurt Maker, Ready in 20 Minutes, ICE-21P1, White

Ordered this to replace my 20 year old cuisinart ice cream maker. The fluid in the freezing bowl walls for my old machine would no longer freeze and they no longer make replacement bowls for that model. This new machine was SIGNIFICANTLY lighter than my old machine--love that. The only downside is that the power cord in the new machine is much shorter--maybe 1 1/2 feet. Other than that, the machine is quiet and works perfectly.Here are some basic things to know about this machine. 1. You must put the freezing bowl in the freezer the night before you plan to make your ice cream. 2. Once the fluid in the freezer bowl wall is frozen, you add your batter and run the machine for 15-20 minutes. The machine churns and freezes your batter while sitting on your counter top for that time. 3. Once "done" you need to transfer your ice cream to a freezer storage bowl and freeze for at least 2 hours to get the ice cream to a good frozen texture. 4. It only makes 1 quart at a time. Bottom line is you must plan ahead. This said, the process requires very little active work. Literally maybe 5 minutes to wisk up the batter and 3 minutes to transfer it to your storage container. Super simple.Once last recommendation--I would highly suggest using ONLY cold water to wash the freezer bowl after use. The directions say use only lukewarm water, but from reading other recommendations and my own experience with a failed freezer bowl (in fairness, not used often but lasted 20 years), using only cold water to clean the bowl will help to preserve the life of the coolant in the bowl walls.

Bought the Model 21 in time for homemade peach ice cream. Had gone back and forth whether to purchase a newer, more expensive version but after reading someone else’s recommendation that the older, simpler model worked just fine, decided to follow their advice and after having made nine batches of various flavors, agree that the “21” couldn’t be any better. No bells and whistles are really necessary other than the on/off switch, and it’s overly pricey to upgrade. The machine does make some noise, but not like a revved-up Harley or anything. I continue putzing around in the kitchen while the ice cream churns, and the high-pitched hum is not overly annoying. The slightly smaller capacity (1-1/2 qt) is advantageous since we can polish off a batch and go on to the next “experiment” without much delay. Finally, the smaller canister is easier to fit in a small refrigerator-freezer for the necessary pre-chilling. I haven’t found a second canister to be necessary for a small family, but if you have the freezer space and need to make larger quantities more often, it could be the ticket.This little gadget has been fun to use and it’s so easy, almost foolproof, to have great-tasting ice cream without the mess of an old-fashioned salt-and-ice freezer. After trying one of the Cuisinarts I ordered another as a gift, along with a 1-1/2 qt oblong storage container (have tried both Tovolo and Sumo—they seem practically identical). After the initial experiments with various “rich” recipes and flavors, we will probably try some of the lower cal versions such as sorbets and ices, but for now, it’s full bore with the creamy goodness. Life is now measured “before homemade ice cream” and after!Observations/methodology: Have tried various recipes—with eggs, cooked custard; with eggs, uncooked; no eggs, adding some instant vanilla pudding powder for extra thickness and body, and using fruits--peaches, cherries, strawberries, as well as butter pecan. (B.C. was hands-down fave!—toasted the chopped nuts in the oven first, with melted butter, a little sugar, and a sprinkling of kosher salt. In the custard, used dark brown sugar, maple syrup and Jack Daniels for flavoring—yummilicious!) Finally decided to stick with the cooked custard approach, adding a small amount of vanilla bean instant pudding powder, say 1-2 TB, to the cooled custard just prior to freezing. (I feel uneasy about using raw, uncooked eggs.) Have had excellent results using a Thermapen to measure the temp, whisking constantly while cooking in a heavy pot. It doesn’t take long to come to temp and thicken, but does need to be cooled prior to freezing, so if in a hurry you may prefer the easy-no-eggs-instant pudding type of recipe, readily available online.Not one batch so far has been a “failure”—in fact, they’re all so good that we’ve become addicted and eat ice cream three times a day. It should come with a warning label! We prefer a rich version, with a combination of heavy cream, evaporated milk, condensed milk and regular milk for a vanilla base resulting in that “from my childhood” taste. It can be modified with add-ins as you please. Be sure to write down what you do as you go, in case tweaking is needed next time or in case you pronounce the latest batch a sure winner. Have plenty of tasting spoons at the ready while churning, and several rubber spatulas will come in handy.As many have noted, it’s key to have the canister frozen rock-solid prior to churning. We keep it in the freezer between uses and even put the plastic shell (aka “lid”) in there while prepping the custard. There’s no actual lid as you might imagine. I wring out a wet dish towel and lay it on top across the open hole, and put some ice cubes atop that to help insulate. May not be necessary, but every bit helps.So far the “21” has worked great and we make a batch every other day. The most challenging part is transferring the just-frozen custard to a storage container for additional hardening. Take out the paddle first and scrape it off (another opportunity for tasting). The filled canister is heavy and to hold it with one hand while scraping out the soft ice cream is a bit unwieldy. A very firm plastic spatula works best (rather than a flexible one) to get all the ice cream out. Never use metal, anywhere, anytime! Wash and dry the canister when empty and return to your freezer pronto. You WILL want more ice cream soon and it’ll be ready to go, so keep a spot empty for it. It’ll be worth it. (I scream for green beans? Not so much….)Some have complained about the freezer not working for long, but being a new owner, I can’t say.. It seems like if you treat the parts gently it would last “forever,” but maybe that’s just like the honeymoon phase with a new lover. Time will tell but we’re very happy for now—even obsessed.Be cautious of OVER-filling the container which can cause an overflow mess since the mixture expands while freezing. Err on being conservative with the amount of custard mix. I use 2 eggs per 3 to 3-1/2 cups of liquid per batch and add the mixings the last few minutes to help ensure they don’t add too much volume. Keep an eye on it from time to time during the freezing process to make sure it isn’t about to overflow. You can always remove some of the mixture if it seems necessary. In the case of the toasted buttered pecans, I folded most of them into the mixture AFTER pouring it into the storage container because instructions say not to add anything larger than a chocolate chip, and I wanted some to be larger chunks. This delayed-addition technique works well for other fixings, too. On one hand, adding pureed fruits at the outset is good, for overall flavor intensity, but adding extra cut-up fruit later may be to your liking. Be aware that too-large chunks will likely get icy in the long run and be hard to scoop up, so there’s a fine line.The other “misteake” was making a double portion of custard in order to have back-to-back batches of half vanilla, intending to make another flavor with the remaining half of the mixture. Apparently the second half of the custard wasn’t chilled enough to overcome the freezing canister having gotten warmer on the first run. Although most batches froze in 15 to 30 minutes max, after a longer time it was obvious this batch refused to set up, so I returned the chilled custard in a bowl in the refrigerator, returned the canister to the freezer and decided to try again later. About five hours worked. Lesson learned—be patient. OK to double the batch, but chill it all thoroughly prior to churning.If pondering whether to get a countertop ice cream freezer, go for it. It’s fun and easy to use. You’ll be a proud as a brand-new parent after you make the first batch.

I have more of a problem with the manual than the machine, because it wasn't the troubleshooting help it could have been. What did help was this page's Question and Answer section, with all the user feedback!So my first batch didn't turn out so well. I used half and half, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract. I'd have used regular cream, but I can't find any pure heavy cream in my area that isn't full of preservatives and additives containing free glutamic acid and other scary stuff.I froze the bowl for 14 hours. The gel was frozen solid. The manual said that the bowl should be in the freezer for 16-24 hours, but it also said that when you didn't hear the liquid gel swishing, it was sufficiently frozen. So I thought optimistically, "Oh! That must mean my freezer's just a super-freezer and got it cold enough in record time! Yay!" Um, no.I have learned that just because the gel is frozen, that doesn't mean its temperature is as low as it can go - or should go. As I discovered, it needs to go a lot lower than "frozen solid" to work with this machine. Since it probably freezes around 32 degrees F (0 Celsius), the manual probably shouldn't say to use the lack of swishing sound as an indicator to readiness. (It's less misleading to say that hearing liquid is a definite sign it's NOT ready.)The actual problem I encountered in my unsuccessful first try was that the mix stopped moving. Parts of it stayed on top of the paddle in a semi-frozen slushy state and parts of it remained on the sides, still unfrozen, and that was the stuff that wouldn't freeze up at all. Since I was confident my bowl was cold enough (uh, yeah!) and the manual cautioned not to stick things in the bowl while the machine was on, I kept turning it off and moving the solid stuff to the sides, then turning it back on. Rather ungainly way to get what turned out to be a milkshake that, when frozen, turned into ice crystals.The next time, I did three things differently, and got very nice, acceptably smooth ice cream without omnipresent ice crystals.First, I used our non-self-defrosting freezer to chill the gel bowl. Freezers that are set to self defrost work by warming up every so often to control frost. Stand-alone freezers like chest freezers or upright freezers come in two styles: Self-defrosting and non-self-defrosting. We use the latter type, the one that has to be manually defrosted, because colder freezers are necessary for long-term storage of meat. A freezer that doesn't self-defrost keeps its cold temperature steady, with the exception of when the freezer is opened or loses power. So I stuck the bowl in that one at the almost-coldest setting, 7 out of 8.Second, I chilled the mixture overnight in the fridge. Not sure that did anything much to improve things, because it seemed about the same amount of cold as my first try.The last thing I did differently was that while the ice cream machine was working, when parts of the mixture started freezing up on top, I used a rubber spatula to recirculate them. I kept using the spatula pretty vigorously the entire churning time. That worked well and was kinda fun.I was left with something that was definitely ice cream. Not slushy, not prone to melting at all. The ice cream didn't melt instantly and the inner bowl was coated with a thin, hard-frozen layer of ice cream in places that stayed there. I rushed to get the ice cream into freezer containers, but I don't think it was necessary this time. Whatever was in that bowl stayed frozen for a long, long time. Fifteen minutes later, I could still eat it frozen with a wooden spoon.So I came away the wiser and with better ice cream. Cold is key. I don't think you need to use a non-self-defrosting freezer like I did, necessarily, but if you chill it the full 24 hours at the coldest setting and it still isn't cold enough, it's possible your self-defrosting freezer isn't doing the job.I was left with two more tips to offer anyone who might be interested. One, if the bowl is that cold, don't wash it right away, or it will freeze some of the washing water on it in an almost invisible layer. Two, I swear that bowl seemed cold enough to possibly make another batch. Had I had one ready, I'd have tried it. If I try it, I'll report back.Hope that helps someone else who encounters the same problem of partially frozen slushy-milkshake ice cream. It's most likely because the bowl isn't cold enough.UPDATE 10/23/2014: Well, it's the next day, and I am thrilled to report I got extra mileage out of the ice cream maker. I froze the bowl at the almost-coldest setting in my non-self-defrosting freezer for about 20 hours. I had a large batch of butterscotch ice cream mix ready and a small batch of coffee ice cream mix ready, my own recipes. I first ran the machine with the large batch for about 18 minutes. (I learned something important here: The larger batches circulate MUCH better than the smaller ones. This one hardly needed to be coaxed with the spatula. On the downside, there was so much aeration that I had to scoop out some at the top to prevent its warming up because it was leaving the icy part of the bowl.) Then I scooped most of the ice cream into a container and popped it in the freezer. I left a bit of the ice cream on the paddle, since the flavors weren't bad to mix with the next batch and I wanted to preserve any coldness I could. I did not wash the bowl out for the same reason, and also because I didn't want it warmed by delays or water. So I then reassembled everything and started the machine and added the small batch of coffee custard mix. It took about 12 minutes to freeze this mini-batch into gorgeous ice cream. Didn't even start to melt. So I basically got 1 1/2 bowls out of one freezer day. Yay! Hopefully I didn't do anything to risk the ice cream maker's breaking - I was pretty careful to mix in the frozen part with the non-frozen part together.I learned something else here, too, that many of you must already know - the more fat, the more like store-bought ice cream. Half and half alone without cream or butter added wasn't quite smooth enough, though it's darn good. I thought it would work because some recipes in the book call for 2 cups milk and 2 cups cream, and it did make nice ice cream, but it occurred to me that I don't know if half & half is half cream, half milk by weight or by volume. Anyone know?UPDATE 9/23/2021: It's years later and it's still working. Haven't used it tons, but somewhat, with a variety of dairy and nondairy ice creams. Pretty pleased with this machine holding up and upgraded it two stars.UPDATE: 5/3/2023: My inner bowl is just starting to flake a bit on the rim, though I have taken a lot of care with washing it and not using abrasives. I found out an interesting factoid from the manufacturer whom I contacted. (Conair) They said of the inner bowl, "The bowl is aluminum covered with a xylan non-stick coating." So apparently the part that comes in contact with the food is fluoropolymer-based and has similarities to Teflon and PTFE. If one were to heat it past a certain temperature, I presume it might not be safe for birds/parrots/avian pets who are nearby. But I imagine/hope that in its normal use, and washing in warm water, it would be fine.