Whynter Ice Cream Maker Machine Automatic 2.1 Qt. Upright with Built-in Compressor, LCD Digital Display & Timer, No Pre-Freezing, ICM-201SB, Stainless Steel

Me encanta mi nueva maquina para hacer helados! es facil de usar y no es necesario congelar el contenedor antes de utilizarla. super recomendada, ya le conte a toda mi familia tambien :P

Have had this for two years now and it rocks. Highly recommended.

I've had mine for a couple of weeks too, and I think it's fantastic. A couple of things- -- I know it shows in the manual that the mixture should not go above these things on each side of the churner, BUT I found it better be a half inch BELOW that. It still gets on the underside of the plastic cover as it churns, but then at least it keeps the mix a bit lower and stops any chance of overflowing the bowl. I actually think it wouldn't matter anyway as the bowl seems to sit in a pretty tightly gasketed ring, so maybe I'm being overly cautious. Either way, I'm still quite happy to get 2 Qts (4 pints) of really good ice cream instead of the 2.5 Qts it claims to make. To get the most actual ice cream out of it, add any mix-ins (choco chips, nuts etc) into it AFTER it has finished freeze churning. When it's done churning, it is soft serve consistency... so I turn it out into a big bowl, THEN I mix in the mix ins (gently so as not to incorporate a lot of ice crystal forming air into it). Then I pack it in pint containers tightly, (using the handy plastic flat spatula thing that came with the machine), cover with a circle of parchment paper against the top of the ice cream, and put them all away in the freezer at least overnight. --- If your ingredients are cold (should not be frozen) when they go into the churn bowl, it can take substantially less time than the 60 minute timer is set to default for. If you come back in 60 minutes and the machine is not still churning, it has probably stopped churning and already gone into 'just chill' mode. This will make it more difficult to get the churn bowl out. That plastic spatula thing that comes with the machine is handy here. First try to hold the handle on both sides of the bowl close to the bowl's top (instead of at the top of the handle) at both of the handle's hinges. Try to pull straight up wiggling a tiny bit. If your churning stopped minutes before and it went into keep cold mode, that bowl will be really tightly held to the frozen sides of the machine. Take the flat spatula thing and (GENTLY) put it between the very top of the bowl and the side of the machine it's against (BUT ONLY about 1/4 inch down!!) and move it back and forth. It will sort of break a vacuum hold. Do it 4 or 5 more times in different places around the bowl and then try again to pull it up. Just be careful not to jam that thing down too far or back and forth to hard. This has always worked for me with no apparent damage to anything. Most of my ice cream recipes include 2 TBS of some kind of liqueur (raspberry, hazelnut, coffee, cherry etc) which will help it from getting so rock hard. It shouldn't be added until the last few minutes of churning, as it can affect the freezing too early) OR after churning and after it's gone into another bowl to add mix ins to, before packing (my preferred method). Commercial ice cream has up to 25 percent more air whipped into it- more money for the manufacturers for less actual product- which makes it more 'fluffy' and also less hard in storage. You can leave the liqueur out of course- either way your homemade will be more dense (more flavorful if you ask me). As to the hardness- 2 things can help- keep it in a freezer that's part of your fridge as opposed to an upright or chest type freezer. Or.... don't worry about any of it, and just leave the pint out on the kitchen counter to soften a tad, for 10 minutes, before you dig in. OR dig it out when rock hard, put in a bowl and microwave for 10 seconds or so. You really can't go too wrong, right? The very few recipes that come with the machine (in the manual) are pretty useless to me (for the egg reason). I went on their web site but couldn't even find any there. I got 5 books from Amazon for ice cream recipes (and sorbets, sherbets, etc). Since I make egg free ice creams only (since 'custard-style' recipes are WAY TOO MUCH work with the cooking and tempering the eggs with the dairy), I have found only one book that has more great egg free (also known as 'Philadelphia style') recipes. That was the 'Perfect Scoop' by David Lebovitz. Very nice book, great recipes, great photos. A favorite recent recipe I made was Peach, Vanilla, Pecan ice cream- 1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk; 1 pint (16 oz) of half and half; 3 cups of uncooked peach puree made from unpeeled (but washed), pitted & chopped peaches pureed in a bowl using an immersion blender; 1 TBS vanilla; 2 TBS raspberry liqueur (added along with the nuts AFTER it came out of the churning bowl into another bowl before packing); 1 cup chopped pecans. I'm sorry to say I don't remember how much this made (ounce wise), or whether I might have also added al cup of whole milk to it also. But the combo of sweetened condensed milk, half and half and whole milk is a great EASY way to get ice cream fast. For chocolate= instead of the peaches- add 4-5 TBS dutch process (dark, european-style) cocoa and 1/4 cup of hersheys syrup, with 2 teaspoons of vanilla, to the dairy combo. Instead of nuts, add in (after freezing & churning and turning out into another bowl) 1/2 to a cup of mini chocolate chips and instead of raspberry liqueur add 2 TBS of Kalua (coffee liqueur) either a few minutes at the end of churning, or with the chips. Don't be afraid to TASTE the mix before you freeze/churn it!! There are no eggs so it's safe to taste- it can then be most to your liking (less vanilla etc). I must say this taller machine fits much better in my kitchen than the wider would. It is quite heavy (as all compressor machines are), so it's not something you want to put on a lower shelf to pull up to the counter to use. But all summer long, this sucker will be sitting on my counter and will be keeping me in ice cream heaven. It appears to be well made, quiet enough when in use, easy to clean, easy to use and I only need to make 16 batches of 4 pints each to pay for itself (our favorite was 5$ a pint before). I think this machine will have no trouble managing that (certainly better than my husband and I can manage eating it all- so it's been a great summer gift to friends !!)

The ice cream maker has good build quality and overall the results are fantastic for at home ice creams and frozen yogurts. Still trying to figure out the best way to store the ice cream as it seems to get really hard in the freezer. The best results so far have been to make the ice cream or frozen yogurt and put it in the freezer for an hour or so - at that point pull it out and serve. It's also good to serve right after the machine but tends to melt quite fast. But if you keep it too long in the freezer it seems to get pretty hard. This all depends of course on your ingredients and how fat your base is.

I have a background in A.C so home I went and did Research on the units and found that if you want to save money ! Think about it do you really want to jump through all of those hoops Rock Salt = Canada and my sidewalk it ends here and now. The simplicity of the Making Ice-Cream with this unit I find outstanding all the way from mixing it chilled it very well and the best Ice-Cream now a little about units think of counter space this one is perfect and I can take it with me + its has overload protected motor trust me on this when it Freezes and it will as it did under an hour in fact my little weight problem lives on so safely. Now its time to add some treats so easy just unscrew the top unit and drop in all in all I'm very happy with this very well made unit as you will be to I Rate this unit 10 Stars.