REVIEW - Cuisinart Deluxe Ice Cream Maker (with AO.com)

It’s hard not to love a delicious bowl of ice cream but making it at home was never something I’d considered (and I’ve seen the challenges contestant after contestant on Masterchef have had trying to get theirs to set).

But the challenge was set when the guys at AO.com agreed to send me the Cuisinart Deluxe Ice Cream Maker, to see if I could make some delicious ice cream at home. If you’ve still not used AO.com before, I can highly recommend them. From their brilliant, easy to navigate website with a huge product range, to their really simple delivery experience.

You get a 1 hour timeslot letting you know exactly when your product is going to arrive so you don’t have to wait in all day and then, the knock at the door and the friendly delivery man hands over your brand new product. Give them a look, give them a try and I know you won’t be disappointed.

On to the product in hand, the Cuisinart Deluxe Ice Cream Maker. Let’s have a look at what you get.

The good news about this product is that it is really simple. There’s very few parts so it’s easy to get going. The lid, your ice cream paddle, your bowl and the device, it’s that simple. One knob at the front turns it from off to on and you’re good to go.

Now, one word of warning if you have children. Don’t let them know you’ve bought the product until it is ready to use. It takes a bit of time before you can make your first portion of ice cream as you have to place the ice cream bowl in the freezer to freeze for a minimum of 12 hours before it is ready to use. 

If you tell the children you have the device and you haven’t frozen the bowl yet, it’s going to be exactly the same as it was on that long trip to Granny’s – ‘are we nearly there yet?’ ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ ‘Is our ice cream ready yet?’ ‘Is our ice cream ready yet?’ So as I said, a little warning from me, don’t let them know until it’s ready to go.

I don’t have children yet, but I got the same experience from my partner S - ‘you told me I was going to get ice cream, why haven’t I got ice cream? Where’s my ice cream?’ Patience is a virtue.

After freezing the bowl for 12 hours to make sure it was perfectly frozen to make my ice cream, I was ready to test the Cuisinart Deluxe Ice Cream Maker. I made up a mix (I opted for Madagascan vanilla for my first attempt), poured it into the bowl and was ready to start the process.

The bowl capacity is a massive 2 litres so there’s plenty of space to make loads of ice cream for the whole family. When filling the bowl, you should always leave some space at the top to allow space for the paddle to move. Pop your paddle in (it doesn’t click in or anything, you just slot it in and let it sit) and it’s ready to go.

Pop on the lid, twist to lock it in place nice and sturdy and you are ready to make ice cream. With one turn of the knob on the front, the machine powers on and begins churning your ice cream.

After 25 to 30 minutes of churning, you will have some delicious soft scoop ice cream, ready to serve. Anyone who also watches Masterchef and recalls how often they fail to get their ice cream to serve, will know that they often place their ice cream in the freezer to firm it up more.

If like me, you like you like your ice cream a little firmer or you are not ready to serve straight away, you can decant the ice cream from the device into a tub and place in the freezer to firm up more or just to store until you are ready to serve it.

So, we’ve put the device into action, what else do you need to know about the Cuisinart Deluxe Ice Cream Maker?

The device comes in an attractive brushed steel design, so it won’t look out of place if you store it on display in your kitchen. The square design means it is really easy to store, either in a corner or if you put it away in a cupboard.

It is recommended that you store the inner bowl in the freezer at all times. That way, you will not have to start the freezing process the next time you want to make ice cream. It will already be frozen and ready to use, speeding up the process.

Just bear in mind that the inner bowl has a height of 16cm. That will be easy to store in a chest freezer, but if you have a freezer with drawers you will have to look for the deepest drawer to fit the bowl in without any problems (this is often the bottom drawer of the freezer).

Now, I know this review might have told you everything you need to know about how to set up and use the device therefore you will think you can get by without looking at the instruction booklet but it’s worth doing so. If you do, you’ll miss the 10 sample recipes that are included in the booklet. They are a great starting point for making your first batch before you go on to concoct your own creations.

Finally, the Cuisinart Deluxe Ice Cream maker comes with a 5 year guarantee so you will have peace of mind that you will be creating delicious ice cream for years to come.

Having never made ice cream before i was delighted to take on the challenge and was amazed at just how easy it was. My initial experiment was a success and the starting point for many more experiments as I try out lots of new and exciting flavour combinations.