Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This thing makes GREAT ice cream if used properly. It is a cinch to use and clean, so much better than the old bucket ice cream makers. After numerous uses I do have a couple of pro tips: 1) make sure the churn is attached to your kitchenaid correctly, otherwise you'll get a gosh-awful scraping sound as the ice cream churns; 2) make sure your ice cream mix and the bowl are both very cold before churning, we make the mix in the morning, put it in the bottom of our fridge all day and then in the freezer for half an hour before churning and leave the bowl in the bottom of the freezer all the time; and 3) plan to freeze your ice cream for an additional several hours after churning if you want it to have the consistency of store bought ice cream. Basically, if you're counting on the kitchenaid bowl to to the heavy lifting of freezing your ice cream instead of your freezer, you're destined to be disappointed. You can tell if you didn't cool your mix or bowl enough if after 45 mins of churning, it still looks like a slightly thickened bowl of milk. at that point, the bowl has thawed enough that it's not freezing the ice cream any more, give up. On the other hand, if you follow these tips and ensure that your mix is only a few degrees away from freezing before you start churning, you're guaranteed great ice cream consistency every time, by which I mean, soft serve consistency at the conclusion of churning (30-45 mins.) and true ice cream after an additional 2-3 hours in the freezer following the churn. A few other general ice cream making tips for the kitcheaid ice cream maker attachment: 1) use evaporated milk instead of normal milk (cuts down on ice crystals); 2) substitute corn syrup for some of your sugar (smoother texture); 3) add a TBS or so of corn starch or arrowroot starch to your mix (make sure to dissolve it before adding to your mix) (makes for a more dense ice cream); and 4) if you're adding fruit, cookies, candy etc. add it after you've completed the churn and poured the ice cream into whatever container you're going to use for the final freeze.