Nostalgia ICMP400WD Electric Wood Bucket Ice Cream Maker 4-Quart

Peeyooee, it stunk when I opened the box but left it out to air and the odor dissipated (i.e. no affect on flavor). Washed up the canister, dasher, etc, popped it into the fridge along with a bowl full of pureed fruit and left it there til next evening. Got home from work, assembled the churn according to directions (outside on the deck), layered in ice and rock salt, plugged it in and 30 minutes later... VOILA, delicious sorbet. My very first and it was successful. And when I say "my first," I mean my very first ice cream churn, my very first sorbet, my very first time making anything of the sort. Who said this was messy? Yeah, I dropped a few ice cubes and a few grains of salt. When I read a negative review that said it was "messy," I was expecting stuff to go everywhere. You exaggerated - there's very little, if any mess, with this churn. Count your lucky stars you don't have to hand crank a churn for ice cream these days. FYI, the canister turned but the dasher was stationary. The sorbet was completely solid in the bottom of the canister but a little soft at the top. I scooped some into bowls to eat and put the rest in a container to continue freezing and enjoying throughout the week. All the "work" that went into this particular batch was done preparing the fruit. The churn did the rest. Before you get wrapped up in the negative reviews, take it from a beginner, this is a good product. If you fail at making ice cream, sherbet, or sorbet verify that your recipe is valid. AND adhere to the churn directions when layering ice and rock salt. Don't be stingy with the rock salt. Here's my recipe: 4 cups of pureed fruit (1 fresh pineapple, 1 fresh mango, enough sweet cherries (pitted) to make four cups); 1/2 cup simple syrup; juice of one lime; 1/4 cup of coconut milk. I think next I will try to make Buttermilk Sherbet. Read more

We bought a brand new complete electric unit, 4 qt., because I read of many issues with the 6 qt and it's dasher not fitting correctly and therefore not working as well as the 4 qt. 1. We received it a day earlier than expected... bonus 2. Everything that was supposed to be in the box was there and in excellent brand new condition - no shipping damages. 3. I washed unit as instructed. 4. We chose to make the Easy Vanilla Ice Cream recipe listed in the included manual. We followed the easy instructions and it worked perfectly. We stopped the unit exactly at 30 min and... perfection. 5. An hour later, we made another included recipe, Easy Chocolate Ice Cream. Again, exactly 30 min later... perfection. 6. Absolutely no mess. Used the unit on my kitchen table on a small towel just in case, but no leaks what so ever. 7. Very easy clean up. No hassles, small parts, or hard to clean areas. 8. The only problem we didn't think of was containers to put the ice cream in when storing in the freezer. But that's not their fault...lol. Both were so delicious and I didn't have to wonder where it was made and if it's safe to eat. The kids (13 & 8) say they never want store bought ice cream ever again. I would HIGHLY recommend this unit to anyone and everyone. Read more

I followed the vanilla ice cream recipe inside and the sweet, cool and melty treat took me back to my childhood when we cranked the rock salt and ice by hand. You cannot get that flavor anywhere. Love the wood casing and size, which felt just like I remember. The flavor was by far superior to that of store bought ice cream, and arguably healthier for my family and I since I used only all natural ingredients. These benefits make the time, effort and expense well worth it. I planned far ahead and made it into a fun activity for the kids and I. Be sure to wash and freeze the canister overnight. Make the liquid ice cream mix and refrigerate. While it is getting cold, go buy a 3-5 lb bag of ice. Upon return, set the empty frozen canister, into the wood casing and add ice. Sprinkle rock salt over the ice. Then pour the ice cream liquid into the frozen canister and start the crank immediately. This will ensure the liquid does not start to freeze and lock the turning arm before you finish adding ice and salt. It needs to crank right away. Oh, and have plenty of towels for the bag of ice that melts all over the kitchen floor as you work. Big fun, tasty mess. Just like it used to be. Now I know why we always made it outside when I was as kid. Well worth it! Read more

Looks great, nicely made, like the nostalgia effect. Problem was, whoever put the motor works together did something wrong. When you plugged it in, ready to make ice cream, put the paddles in, connect it to the motor, turn it on, the canister started turning, not the paddles!!! I could not believe it! I let it run until it stopped after 30 minutes, but there had been no mixing of the ice cream mix, no aeration as necessary to make ice cream. So disappointing with a family group of eight for dinner and dessert. I"m getting a replacement and crossing my fingers that it will be okay, mostly because of so many previous good reviews (and I like the look). Update: I returned this item and got a duplicate because I thought the first one was defective as the paddle did not rotate, the canister did. No where in the manual did I see anything to tell me this was how they now worked. In the past, ice cream makers I had used had the paddles rotate, not the canister. My ice cream did not congeal as I said above and i returned the product. Another arrived with the same canister motion, so I researched online and found this was normal operation for this unit. I gave it another go, this time the machine never stopped, I had to stop it after 45 minutes as I was concerned about overall consistency after freezing. The ice cream came out awesome! Learning curve for an old bird, but the result was great. So, am editing my review to reflect my new rating. Read more