NostalgiaICMP400WD Electric Wood Bucket Ice Cream Maker, 4-Quart

We bought a brand new complete electric unit, 4 qt., because I read of many issues with the 6 qt and it's dasher not fitting correctly and therefore not working as well as the 4 qt.1. We received it a day earlier than expected... bonus2. Everything that was supposed to be in the box was there and in excellent brand new condition - no shipping damages.3. I washed unit as instructed.4. We chose to make the Easy Vanilla Ice Cream recipe listed in the included manual. We followed the easy instructions and it worked perfectly. We stopped the unit exactly at 30 min and... perfection.5. An hour later, we made another included recipe, Easy Chocolate Ice Cream. Again, exactly 30 min later... perfection.6. Absolutely no mess. Used the unit on my kitchen table on a small towel just in case, but no leaks what so ever.7. Very easy clean up. No hassles, small parts, or hard to clean areas.8. The only problem we didn't think of was containers to put the ice cream in when storing in the freezer. But that's not their fault...lol.Both were so delicious and I didn't have to wonder where it was made and if it's safe to eat. The kids (13 & 8) say they never want store bought ice cream ever again. I would HIGHLY recommend this unit to anyone and everyone.

Peeyooee, it stunk when I opened the box but left it out to air and the odor dissipated (i.e. no affect on flavor). Washed up the canister, dasher, etc, popped it into the fridge along with a bowl full of pureed fruit and left it there til next evening. Got home from work, assembled the churn according to directions (outside on the deck), layered in ice and rock salt, plugged it in and 30 minutes later... VOILA, delicious sorbet. My very first and it was successful. And when I say "my first," I mean my very first ice cream churn, my very first sorbet, my very first time making anything of the sort.Who said this was messy? Yeah, I dropped a few ice cubes and a few grains of salt. When I read a negative review that said it was "messy," I was expecting stuff to go everywhere. You exaggerated - there's very little, if any mess, with this churn. Count your lucky stars you don't have to hand crank a churn for ice cream these days.FYI, the canister turned but the dasher was stationary. The sorbet was completely solid in the bottom of the canister but a little soft at the top. I scooped some into bowls to eat and put the rest in a container to continue freezing and enjoying throughout the week. All the "work" that went into this particular batch was done preparing the fruit. The churn did the rest. Before you get wrapped up in the negative reviews, take it from a beginner, this is a good product. If you fail at making ice cream, sherbet, or sorbet verify that your recipe is valid. AND adhere to the churn directions when layering ice and rock salt. Don't be stingy with the rock salt.Here's my recipe: 4 cups of pureed fruit (1 fresh pineapple, 1 fresh mango, enough sweet cherries (pitted) to make four cups); 1/2 cup simple syrup; juice of one lime; 1/4 cup of coconut milk.I think next I will try to make Buttermilk Sherbet.

Easy to use, makes 4 qt. Ice cream which honestly we fed 7-8 people with and had tons of leftovers. Taxed it recently with an old recipe that had us filling it to the brim and it worked like a champ. Easy to use instructions. Wish it had a hand crank but ice cream in 30 minutes or so? Who can complain. It looks great but does have some plastic parts so be careful. We dropped a non essential piece & it broke pretty easily so try not to drop it or it’s pieces. Which is great advice for most things! Love this purchase and can’t wait to try even more recipes.

This ice cream maker works as described and is well constructed and for that I give it 4 stars. Why not 5? Well, continue reading:I bought this because I wanted to make home made ice cream. I live in the Southwestern United States where I experience extremely hot summers. I thought to myself that home made ice cream would be the perfect way to cool down during said summers. When buying this, I also bought the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream recipe book so that I could make the perfect creamy ice cream. So how did it go? I went to the store and I bought cream ($4), sugar ($3), vanilla ($5), ice cream salt ($5), a bag of ice ($2), and cookie dough ($6). I then proceeded to mix the ingredients as described in the recipe book. However the cookie dough sunk to the bottom and got the mixer stuck. I then took the cookie dough out with a spoon so the mixer would spin again. By this time much of the cream mixture had frozen because of the surrounding ice. I couldn't take the metal canister out of the ice bucket because the ice would cave in and I would not be able to put it back in. I did my best to hand stir the ice cream to loosen it up after which I put the mixer back in. It spun briefly then got stuck again. Because some of the ice cream was already frozen, I scooped it out and served it to myself and my roommates. The result? Far too sweet (did I add more sugar than the recipe called for?). I mixed the remaining liquified mixture by hand and put it in the freezer. When I took it out the next day it was rock solid. The home made ice cream sat on my shelf in the freezer for a few weeks before I ended up throwing it away because it was too sweet anyways and I didn't feel like thawing it out for twenty minutes at a time whenever I wanted ice cream.What I learned is that it cost me $25 in ingredients just to make one pint of ice cream which was far too sweet. If I had wanted to experiment with the recipe to make the perfect ice cream, this would probably cost hundreds of dollars in ingredients necessary for the trial-and-error. Additionally, the ice cream must be eaten immediately or it will become too hard in the freezer. I am also not sure how to add cookie dough without it stopping the mixer.Could I persevere and learn how to make the perfect homemade ice cream? Sure, I guess but I ended up buying other kitchen appliances later on that were more practical (hint, get an air fryer). What happened to the ice cream maker? It sat in the garage for the summer gathering dust and ended up in my landlord's yard sale in the fall. When he went inside the house, someone stole the fondue maker even though the ice cream machine was right beside it and probably far easier to steal (less cumbersome). No one bought the ice cream maker and it was given to goodwill. Between the ice cream machine, the Ben & Jerry's book, and the ingredients I lost $75. Isn't that just great? Good thing I have tonnnns of extra money just sitting around. This leads me to my final question, if the ice cream was so sweet why am I still bitter?