Ice Appliance Ice Cream Pro

I've made 2 ice creams and 1 sorbet so far with not too impressive results. The two ice creams (chocolate and Baileys) had 500ml of a perfect custard to kick off with but 75 minutes later was still completely fluid with no hint of freezing despite reading -14C; finally giving up I put the mixture in the fridge and left an hour and had a reasonable product, though no different in quality to one where you freeze the bowl first. The sorbet (lime and passionfruit) again went down to minus double digits but ended up in the freezer in a liquid form. When I pulled the bowl out it struck me that the -15C reading felt more like +5C (next time I will verify this!).On the plus side it is quiet but I would prefer something noisy that did its job!----------Having now tried 6 times with this unit I've came to the conclusion either (1) I have a faulty unit or (2) it is ineffective in doing its job. Its last effort was 350ml chilled custard, 2 hours, about a tablespoon full of thickened product on the base of the cannister. Following instruction manual we put it in freezer to complete but what resulted was effectively hard frozen custard. This is a piece of junk if you ask me.

Very good at first and made really good ice cream. However the lugs on the lid broke and it has been impossible to find a replacement - very disappointing as it was not cheap. Can anyone help?

There is no doubt that this machine will make ice cream but not without some problems along the way. The first problem was the manual as mentioned elsewhere within these reviews. It rates as poor to very poor; it does not contain the address of the manufacturer/supplier or a telephone number for customer support. The quality of the machine appears to be very good and to supply such a poor operator manual is disappointing.On our first attempt to make ice cream the paddle stopped rotating even though the mixing indicator light was on. We referred to the manual which was when we realised how useless it was. We were not sure what to do at this stage as we realised that the paddle had become frozen solid. After a lot of fiddling around we managed to release the paddle and retrieve the ice cream. The cause of this issue is the length of time you set the cooling function to run for. We set it for the time suggested in the recipe in the manual but the mixture had frozen well before the time setting had completed. We have experimented with various time settings to try and find the right one which does not freeze the machine solid.And that is where the patience is required - this is not really a start and run to completion machine. It requires regular checking. The length of time required will depend on the temperature of the ingredients and the ambient temperature which can all vary with each batch you make.It is quite an expensive machine and at this level I would have expected it to have a mixer cut out if the paddle is stalled. So it does require a learning curve to adapt to the machine which is not made easier by the poor manual. It is because the operator manual does not anticipate or help with the problems that you are likely to encounter I have only given it the 3 stars. Its OK in that it makes ice cream but not as easily as you might expect it to.Edit - Since writing the review we have made some ice cream which requires ingredients adding during mixing and discovered that the aperture for this is rather too small and ended up with a mess all down the side of the machine.

Having seen the Cuisinart and Gaggia offerings in the flesh we decided that they werent for us as they were far from attractive. Plus there was the downside of the noise reports that many users noted. Having read all of the positive reviews on here and like other owners the which magazine report for the old machine we decided to take the plunge.Overall the machine is good and i would recommend buying it when compare to other brands, its stylish and importantly much quieter than the competition, however it is lacking in a few areas. Moreover im surprised that some of these items were not addressed during functional testing of the machine.On the downside the manual is particularly poor. We watched the in-trepidation on first use as we waited patiently for the final results. Having stopped the machine part way through to look at the contents by removing the motor and lid on replacing them the paddle didnt rotate. The only way we could get it going again was to turn off using the power button and then on again. There is nothing mentioned about this in the manual. From further experience if the paddle doesnt turn on the restart just leave it a few minutes and it will start churning again.Then there is the lid. For some reason the fill shoot has been put at the rear of the lid, now im sure this will live in most peoples kitchen worktops under wall cupboards. If you want to add contents to the machine then you have to drag it forwards from under the cupboard in order to get to the fill shoot. The shoot could clearly move to the opposite side of the lid making it much easier to use. Then there is the size of the chute, it is very small making it pretty much useless for anything other than hundreds and thousands (whole blueberries dont fit down it) Also its easy to spill whatever you want to put in over the machine, it would be useful if some sort of funnel was provided to overcome this.One thing also to note is that as the churning process takes place the motor on the top starts to wobble as the ice cream thickens and increases the torque on the paddle. Again nothing is mentioned about this in the manual so there is a slight concern that the motor connections could become loose or warped. I did email Ice Appliance and they advised that the motor does have an over torque safety cut off function, again this isnt mentioned in the manual.On the positive side the machine is well made and has some well positioned handle cut outs on each side which allow the machine to be picked up and remain balanced as you move it. The machine doesnt need you to close the kitchen door while in operation, think washing machine levels of noise (not the spin cycle) and makes very good ice cream assuming you have a good base.Overall i would recommend that this machine to other people, especially compared to the competition but there is room for improvement in the design and also the instruction manual (there is no FAQ on the ice appliance website also)As for the custard base this is the best i have found to date which allows you to scoop straight from the freezer:Empty One 300ml pot of double cream into a mixing bowl and half fill with caster sugar and empty into the same bowl (approx 140g of sugar). Then add one whole egg and whisk to add air. Make sure you dont thicken the cream/sugar/egg mixture by over whisking.Half fill the 300ml cream pot with whole milk and place in a saucepan. Heat but dont boil.Pour the hot milk into the cream/sugar/egg mixture and stir and then put back in the saucepan to heat up.The custard mixture is ready when it coats a spoon and you can run your finger down the spoon leaving a clear line. Cool rapidly by placing the contents in a bowl which you then place in cold water.Add whatever flavours you want your ice cream to be and put in the ice cream maker. The above seems to take around an hour to make ice cream and about 30/40 minutes before it starts to noticeably thicken when being churned.