Nostalgia 2-Quart Digital Electric Ice Cream Maker

Too weakly made

Out of sheer excitement, while waiting for the ice cream makers arrival, I went out and bought recipe books, rock salt, syrups, heavy cream, half and half, fresh fruit to freeze to have on hand for future ice cream etc. I totally assumed (and should have known better) that everything would go smoothly. It arrived and I immediately got my first batch of ice cream going. This ice cream maker is a total disappointment. The candy crusher will only crush candy bars and that is ONLY IF it has no nuts, toffee, or any hard ingredients. Other than pure chocolate bars I don’t feel the candy crusher would even stand a chance, so do not intend on that part of the machine being functional. Candy will need to be crushed elsewhere and then added at the end, if you get that far, I did not. The machine ran perfectly for the first 3 minutes but after that the fundamental design of the machine is so poor that it just could not do what it was made to do. Somewhere around the 4 or 5 min mark, from turning the machine on I realized that the dasher in the canister was snagged or something. The machine was no longer spinning. Turns out that as the ice began to melt, somehow (which only seems so logical to me that this would happen so I am not sure why it was designed the way it was) somehow the ice got under the cansiter and lifted it, only slightly, but even 1/8 of an inch of lift and the canister is no longer aligned with the gear. Then because you added rock salt it immediately freezes Itself all lopsided and no longer even churning. The moment that you have to stop the machine because it is acting up you can pretty much guarantee you will need to start all over again. What happens is the canister gets jammed by the ice and stops spinning. Then in order to unjam the ice you must pull out the canister (if you leave the canister in the machine and try pulling the ice jam out you risk all the rock salt going into the ice cream) BUT, because there IS rock salt and ice, it literally only takes 2 seconds (very literally2 seconds) of the dasher being stationary inside the canister and it freezes to the sides of the canister making the entire machine non functional. You can’t run the machine if the dasher is froze to the sides of the canister or you will A) make a huge mess on your counter and B) burn up the machine motor. Not to mention when you remove the canister all that melted ice, ice cubes and rock salt fill in the space where the canister needs to go back to in order to finish your mostly melted by now ice cream. if you pull out the canister then you also have to dump all the ice salt and water somewhere to be able to return the canister to its original position. Its a lot to try to figure out where to dump it when that is the last thing you expect to have to do when all hell breaks loose in your kitchen 5 mins into making ice cream! If you do find somewhere to place the salt and ice from the machine temporarily and place the ice cream canister back in the machine, then you need to find a way to pour all that water and ice and salt back down into the tiny space between the canister and machine side walls without getting any of it into the ice cream. It would immediately be ruined by the smallest amount of rock salt falling into the mixture. Soooo after struggling with this HUGE salty mess, my mixture getting ruined and many attempts to unjam the ice, I finally called it quits. My kitchen was a mess, my boyfriend and I were swearing and frustrated, I had followed the instructions perfectly and when it was all said and done I had basically thrown out over $100 In ingredients and cookbooks not to mention the cost of the machine. The entire design is just so significantly flawed that I didn’t even try a second time. One “session” with this machine was one more than my life needed. A couple hours later when all the water fully dried and I then saw all the salt residue left behind in kitchen, my frustration for this machine was taken to an even higher level! Save yourself from this being you, just get a better brand. You get what you pay for and in this case where a typical ice cream maker costs anywhere from $70-$140 and this one is around $30…well, do the math….keep scrolling, really, don’t buy this.

This machine is the perfect appliance. Easy to follow instructions. Followed to attached recipes and then tried a fresh Blueberry Gelato followed by a incredible Pistachio Gelato. This little guy whipped up all four recipes back to back. One note… you will use a lot of ice. This can be cut in half by making sure your batch is extremely cold when you pour your recipe into the metal churn base. Be prepared to refill the metal base at least two times per batch. The candy grinder on top shaved white chocolate like a champ. This machine earns a four star approval from me!

Very nice. Love it

I loved that machine oh my gosh it’s very easy to use easy to clean and very quick