YayLabs Play and Freeze Ice Cream Ball Ice Cream Maker, Quart, Blue

It's close to 100 degrees outside, and we just made ice cream in the family room! It's too heavy for us to handle, kids are age 5 and 8, so we roll it back and forth in a big triangle on the carpet. Doesn't leak, works great. It IS heavy hard plastic, so if it hits you hard it does hurt, but that doesn't happen if you're paying attention, and doesn't usually happen twice ;)This would be great for a camping trip if you remember to bring the rock salt and have a big picnic blanket you can put down to roll it around on. 4-6 feet between people seems to be about the right spacing. 30 minutes is a little long for little ones to stay engaged, so do expect to participate, at least at a minimum level. If you just give it to 2-3 kids and walk away, they will get tired, and it is a bit of delayed gratification.We've used this 2 times (the quart size), each time to make just a pint. The first time we didn't have nearly enough ice (nor rock salt, so I just used "some" kosher salt instead), so it just got slushy after 30 minutes of rolling. I transferred it into a plastic container and put it into the freezer, not really sure if it would get icy or rock hard, or what. After about an hour it was nice to scoop, and was still nice to scoop and not rock hard the next day. Needless to day, that pint didn't last more than the 2 days...Today I planned ahead (got the rock salt and made enough ice ahead of time - our ice maker is officially kaput). It worked really well! Most of it was hard-frozen (like ice cream) after 30 minutes after a scrape-down at 15 minutes (per the directions). I used a wooden stir-fry spatula to scrape it off the sides and had no trouble at all.The Vanilla recipe in the booklet is great, with or without chocolate chips. Be sure to use mini chips though, they get VERY hard. Regular sized ones would need to be chopped up. Haven't tried any other flavors yet.

Totally delighted with the item we received. We ordered the blue, quart-size ball after seeing it being used by the competing chefs on Iron Chef America... seriously. They whipped up a simple recipe, poured it in, then tossed it across the kitchen to each other in the middle of a cook-off challenge... toss... "catch!" ... toss... then, presto, ice cream. (The instructions do say not to toss it.. but I guess Iron Chefs are not mere mortals, so they played by their own rules.. whatever. It made smooth lovely ice cream in an amazingly short amount of time. I searched for "ice cream ball" and found it immediately, in an array of brilliant colors and, surprisingly, two choices of size. The prices were reasonable, better yet, they were reduced.I'm thoroughly impressed with the sturdy quality construction, it's amazingly sturdy and the directions/use could really not be more simple. You will need ice and rock salt to use this, but no electricity and it won't leak. (Just don't get the cheap rock salt that comes with actual gravel/rocks in it or both the ball and your sink could be scratched up. Didn't happen to me, but I read the warnings from other ice cream ball owners.) It comes safely and securely packaged (days ahead of the delivery date) complete with a basic paddle scoop and recipe/instruction booklet. You can make ice cream, frozen yogurt, sorbet... and, with a little creativity, much more. Certainly something that the kids can help with... and would very likely enjoy. I even saw video of a dog at a picnic, rolling it across the grass and, in effect, mixing the ice cream or whichever frosty concoction it was... and again, after just a little while, it was ready to enjoy. I might send these as gifts next... they look awesome and they are very fun. Best of all, it's built to last and be enjoyed and used for a long time. =-) LOVE IT.

It took forever and was awkward to roll around. You can't toss it like the smaller one as it can easily break according to another reviewer. The ice cream wasn't really hard. Maybe if you put it in the freezer it would get more frozen.

We've used our unit twice now, and both times the ice cream was delicious! Keep in mind this is a fun item, something to use at a party when there are plenty of people around to help roll/shake the container. If you will make ice cream frequently, an electric maker will suit you better. But if you want a novelty activity for your barbecue or beach party, this will be a hit. One star down for this caveat: The unit is heavy when full, so be sure you have some energetic young people around to keep it moving (you could get the smaller unit, of course). It takes about a 1/2 hour for the quart size to freeze the mixture when made with heavy cream, and don't expect freezer-hard ice cream. But after 30 minutes, all seven of us enjoyed a share of the delicious confection, loaded into cups in the cottage and walked down to the beach on a warm summer night under a starlit sky.

While this concept is great for kids to learn about heat/cold transfer and science principles ---our soccer loving kids quickly lost interest in tossing and kicking this ball for 30 minutes straight. I ordered the quart size and should have ordered the pint size in which the ice cream would have been ready 10-12 minutes earlier.

My husband and I used this to make ice cream with our 5-year old daughter. It was fun, but got a little bit long in the end. It was also heavy for her to push back and forth to us, especially for that amount of time. We used 1/2 and 1/2 instead of cream, so it did warn us that it would take longer. At any rate, the final product was surprisingly good, and the concept was very fun. We will use it again, but probably not for a little while.

This worked really well! I was skeptical, but it made great ice cream! My kids were a little disappointed that they couldn't throw it around because I must have missed the part about ordering the extra padding thing for throwing, but they rolled it around on the floor and had a lot of fun with it! My kids are 4 & 7 and would definitely recommend!