Product Review: Cuisinart Pure Indulgence Ice Cream Maker

I recently received a Cuisinart Pure Indulgence 2 QT Ice Cream Maker to review from Cookware.com. Cuisinart advertises this machine as being able to make two quarts of ice cream, sorbet, or frozen yogurt, so I decided to give it a whirl on the frozen yogurt. I used a recipe for vanilla frozen yogurt from the manual that came with the machine, and I was impressed with how well it did the job. You'll notice from the picture that what you come up with is a lot of creamy frozen yogurt with some frozen shavings dumped on top. This is because the bowl freezes the ice cream through a coolant that is housed within the walls of the bowl. Thus, the metal walls are much colder than the middle. I recommend having your plastic or rubber spatula ready to go as soon as you stop the machine, because the quicker you scrape, the less you get those frozen shavings. That said, they mixed in well, and once I froze the yogurt for a couple of hours, it was a homogenous substance.

The benefits of this ice cream maker are its size and its ease of use. It's very simple and it does what it's supposed to. The 2 quart size is great because you can make enough for a party if you need to. You do have to store the bowl in the freezer, which means you need room for it, but you can use the base on your counter and it only takes 20-30 minutes to make dessert. The frozen yogurt I made was smooth and creamy, though I thought the recipe in the manual was a little bit too sweet. It also doesn't freeze well for the long term; if you're the only one eating you probably want to make ice cream instead. You can get your own ice cream maker at Cookware.com. I also noticed when I was browsing the site that they have a ton of decently priced bakeware, so you might want to check that out as well.

Disclaimer: Cookware.com provided an ice cream maker for review free of charge. Shortcut to Mushrooms reviews books and products as provided only when given complete freedom to write an honest review. No direction was provided in writing this post.