Pros: Easy, quick
Cons: Requires advance planning; slightly difficult to put together; not amazingly durable
Rating: 3 out of 5
First posted 7/1/2000
The Krups ice cream maker is fairly simple to use. You put the bowl of the machine (it has liquid between the walls) in the freezer at least 24 hours in advance (in practice we find it needs more like 48 to get truly cold enough). Then you take it out and assemble it, affixing the paddle, the plastic thing that the motor housing fits in, and the motor. You start up the motor and pour in the ice cream mixture (recipe book included). It makes 1.5 quarts of ice cream.
If you have a small freezer, you may find the 24-48 hour freezing time a little annoying. You either have to plan in advance or keep the bowl in the freezer full-time. We’d love to do the latter, but can’t until we have a larger freezer. The bowl is a little on the large side, too, which doesn’t help.
The paddle can be a little difficult to fit in. You place it in the bowl, then try to fit the motor onto it without pushing it out of place. It isn’t too bad, but can be mildly annoying.
The real problem we had was that our motor housing cracked and leaked yellow stuff out. I think this is because someone in our house may have put a pie plate or two on it, though. So while it doesn’t say amazing things about its durability (find a good, unoccupied shelf to put it on!), I don’t think it was an actual defect in the item. Note that the motor housing is a little oddly-shaped and thus not entirely easy to store unless you keep the ice cream maker assembled.
The book claims that it takes 25-45 minutes of grinding to get good ice cream. We had to let it go the full 45 every time, and then we had to put it in the freezer pretty quickly. Otherwise, as it was rather soft, it would melt right away.
Added later: We ended up replacing our Krups with a Cuisinart, and we definitely prefer it.
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