2 Responses to “Cuisinart ICE-21TQ Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker, Turquoise”

1. P.Toaster says:

   June 15, 2011 at 9:21 am

   17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

   
   This is the Cat’s Pajamas!, December 27, 2010

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   P.Toaster (USA) –

   Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

   This review is from: Cuisinart ICE-21TQ Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker, Turquoise (Kitchen)

   This is so easy and fun to use…never going to eat store bought ice cream again! Have had this for less than two weeks and have made ice cream 5 times already. First time was just an experiment using things I happened to have in the fridge which did not even include regular dairy, I only had coconut milk, and I ended up with a strawberry sorbet kind of concoction that was darned good. Since then I have followed recipes for coconut pineapple custard, rum raisin, chocolate mint and vanilla custard. Each one has been outstanding and far exceeds similar flavors I have tasted in store bought, not to mention no more high-fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors and colorings. It is so easy to use and 4 out of the five times the ice cream was done in under 10 minutes. The exception was the rum raisin, the alcohol content might have slowed the freezing process down, but it still set-up in less than 20 minutes. I live in South Florida and have no problem getting the insulated bowl to freeze solid. I always make sure my base is well chilled too. When it is first done it freezes to a texture a little bit harder than soft serve frozen custard, which is delicious, but after it has been stored in the freezer it becomes more of a traditional hard ice cream texture.
   I have wanted an ice cream maker for a while as I am planning on going dairy free in the near future and the coconut milk and almond milk ice creams are soooo expensive I though making my own would be the best way to go. After much research I had debated between this and the big soft-serve dispensing, mix-in machine also made by Cuisinart but decided on this one because simpler is usually better…plus this color aqua is so fun. I am very pleased with this purchase…one of the best self-bought birthday presents I ever made. I think some kind of frozen drink might be my next experiment…now if I can only decide which flavor to try…mudslide, creamsicle, frosty pina colada…

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2. A Change Would Do You Good says:

   June 15, 2011 at 9:58 am

   8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

   
   It’s also the perfect appliance to add to your bar! (UPDATED Review), March 9, 2011

   By 

   A Change Would Do You Good –
   
     

   This review is from: Cuisinart ICE-21TQ Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker, Turquoise (Kitchen)

   Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What’s this?)

   This is an updated review with information offered in a chronological manner.

   ————————
   Original Review:

   I didn’t really expect to throw together some ingredients, flip a switch and have ice cream a mere 20 minutes later. I expected a soft serve of sorts, but what I have gotten in two out of three batches is a not-so-thick shake-like slurry. That said, the machine DOES make something close to soft serve if the conditions are right.

   Here are my recommendations:

   Freeze the bowl in the coldest freezer you have (make sure you set the freezer to your coldest setting). My kitchen freezer isn’t cold enough. Also, make sure you seat the bowl on its flat bottom so that the stuff inside it that freezes doesn’t freeze unevenly and cause issues when it’s spinning. Freeze it for at least 24 hours – a few days is preferable. I’ve decided to just store mine in the deep freeze.

   Mix your ingredients ahead of time and get them as cold as you possibly can (without freezing them) before you put them in the machine. Ice crystals happen when freezing takes too long. The colder the ingredients, the faster your machine will “freeze” it (or get it close to freezing) and the less ice crystals will form in your ice cream.

   When you go to freeze the “soft serve” try to put it in a container that fits it with just a little room to spare for expansion and make sure it has a tight lid. Too much air will change the consistency of the ice cream – less air is better.

   The timing to make a batch of ice cream looks something like this: at least 24 hours to freeze the bowl, 20 minutes to run in the machine (assuming you did all your recipe prep work while the bowl was freezing, including super chilling the liquid before attempting to freeze it), and about 3 hours in a deep freeze to harden the “soft serve” enough to actually be called ice cream. Amazon has a video posted for this product and the ice cream shown in that video would have had to have been frozen overnight to get that firm, for example.

   I loved the blue color of this machine. I just looks like an ice cream shop to me. It doesn’t match a single thing in my kitchen, but I’m not going to devote permanent counter space to an appliance I just use occasionally anyway. It is surprisingly light weight as it is made entirely of plastic (except for the bowl). When running it’s about as loud as my washing machine is when it’s on delicate mode. I know that’s a subjective description, but there you go: it’s not unbearably loud, but neither is it unobtrusively quiet.

   Buy a copy of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. Just do it. In fact, this book, in conjunction with the ice cream maker, makes for a perfect wedding or bridal shower gift. The recipes are easy to follow and include many of the most popular flavors. My very first batch, I made my most favorite: Cherry Garcia. It is interesting to note that this batch was by far the thickest I’ve made so far. I think it’s because I used frozen cherries. The mocha recipes are awesome too.

   Enjoy!

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   Added April 24, 2011:

   I’ve been using this appliance for about three weeks now and have been so impressed with its performance where making sorbets is concerned, I felt moved to upgrade my original review from 4 stars to 5. In fact, I think this machine is first a sorbet maker and an ice cream maker second as the non-dairy ingredients used in sorbets seem to freeze much more efficiently than dairy recipes and thus deliver a thicker product straight out of the machine.

   Sorbet is basically frozen fruit juice. The basic recipe is to dissolve 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar and a dash of salt in 2 cups of water (or water based juices) and as much fresh/frozen fruit as you like. Blend it all up, strain out the pulp, and then cool the resulting syrup in the refrigerator for an hour before freezing. You can also make varieties that don’t have fruit in them. So far we’ve hit home runs making brewed chai and mocha sorbets. Just follow the basic recipe, but leave out the fruit. We also use less sugar, but that is a matter of taste and based upon experimentation. To make Chai, I brew 2 cups of water with 3 teabags until it reaches room temperature. For mocha, I use good quality cocoa powder and hot water with a teaspoon of good quality freeze dried coffee. (Starbucks offers some gourmet varieties: Starbucks VIA Ready Brew Coffee, Colombia, 3.3-Gram Packages (Pack of 50)). Both make a yummy frozen treat…

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