Ice Cream Maker IM540 Homemade Gelato, Sorbet, Frozen Yoghurt Maker Machine, Soft Serve Dessert Makers, Fresh Creamy Ice Creams in 30 Min, Compact Portable Design for Family Home Recipes

Just purchased this ice cream maker which arrived yesterday. As soon as I opened the box I cleaned the inner bowl and placed it in the freezer. I then made a basic low carb custard (1liter) with almond milk and cream, erythritol, vanilla essence and 6egg yolks. I also made almond cookie dough and smashed some dark chocolate. I let the mixture cool and then refrigerated it. Next day I churned the custard. Took 30mins to get a soft ice cream. Transferred that to a bowl and mixed in the chocolate and dough and decanted into a 1litre yogurt container for freezing. I’m very happy with the machine so far and it did a good job. The ice cream turned out amazingly. I normally buy a low carb ice cream but I can’t get it anymore so decided to give it a go myself. Glad I did because not only is it very cost effective to make, the machine will pay for itself after 6 batches, but also, the ice cream turned out just as good if not better than what I was purchasing. The machine is not very loud and is easy to clean. I was careful when adding the mix(a jug with a spout is worth having fir this) so not much cleaning required really but if you do make a mess on the lid the motor is detachable for an easy clean. I’ve never used an ice cream machine before so I can’t judge based on others however this machine does it’s job well so I would definitely recommend it. Ive put the inner bowl back into the freezer for next time so it’s ready to go.

This is very much a no fuss appliance, nothing fancy about it just one on/off knob but it does the job well, it has limitations but once you understand them and work within them it makes excellent Ice Cream at a low cost. I've made a fair few batches of Ice Cream with this so would recommend two things: First, the recommended time to freeze the bowl of 8 hours should be thought of as the absolute minimum time to freeze it, this is I think a common trait with all bowls that need freezing, the longer you freeze it the better the results will be, I give mine at least 24 hours. The mixture need to be as cold as possible too so make sure the mixture is well refrigerated before pouring in the bowl, I find it is a good idea to make the mixture and put it in the fridge at the same time as I put the bowl in to freeze so both are ready to go at the same time tomorrow. Second while the mixing bowl can hold 1.5 litres of liquids, it can not mix 1.5 litres of Ice Cream, the paddle creates a traveling peak as it churns and by the time it reaches the 'soft serve' stage the peak may just touch the paddle housing even with only around 915ml of ingredients (the amount in Frozen Custard) depending on how much air the mixture has beaten into it. If you do have too much in the bowl and the lid and paddle housing get messed up it is fiddly to clean and it is possible for the mixture to get up inside the housing if you go overboard, I'd not risk going much above 950ml of ingredients myself depending on aeration. The instructed method of adding ingredients through the lid as the paddle is in operation is quite fiddly and liable to make an unholy mess if you are not careful, you could risk putting all the mixture in the bowl before putting the bowl in the machine but a particularly thick mixture will probably cause the motor to struggle to get going and may invalidate any warranty. Other than those points it does the job very well for the price, the first one is, I believe, common to all Ice Cream makers where you freeze the bowl but as it is fiddly to clean and likely to get messed up if you are not very careful I can only give four stars.

A previous reviewer indicated that negative reviews of this machine were due to user error rather than faults with the machine, and I have to agree. I have been using ice cream makers for years, mainly from well known brands, and this is the best ice cream maker I have owned. It does its job brilliantly. The manual that you have to download is the weak point. It doesn’t point out that there is a button on the rear of the machine that you press in order to release the lid from the engine for cleaning, so regardless of reviews that state otherwise, yes you can clean the lid. (That said, it only takes a little commonsense from users to work this out for themselves). Someone else complained about the length of the manual, but it is multi-lingual. English is the first language used and it is a 5 minute read. The recipes in the manual are not good (I wouldn’t use any of them) but you can get recipes anywhere. The manual also advises you to freeze the inner bowl for 8 hours before making ice cream. This simply isn’t long enough. Freeze the bowl for at least 24 hours and make sure that your ice cream mix is fridge cold when you come to use the machine. Finally, the bowl needs a generous 15cms in height to fit in your freezer.

Nice simple Ice cream. The recipe booklet will get you started. We followed the recipe for raspberry ice cream but swapped for Strawberries ( just what we had frozen). When we want to eat it we leave it out for a few minutes, scoop out, then tuck in.

The price of the Duronic is extremely competitive for this type of machine. I purchased this machine to make healthier, frozen yogurts as we find most ice-cream in the shops much too sweet for our taste. I have certainly been able to make some delicious fruit yogurts and ice-creams. I would suggest adding a small amount of guar gum to the mixture, particularly when making frozen yogurt and sorbets that contain less fat and sugar. The guar gum inhibits ice crystal formation and the mixture doesn’t freeze quite as hard. It also has a thickening effect. Not easy to find in the shops, but you can purchase it through Amazon. However, I have some complaints. Firstly, if like me you have not made ice-cream before you may find the instruction manual poor. It says that the bowl needs to be frozen for at least 8 hours, but this is far too short a time for the average home freezer, particularly when the bowl is at room temperature. When the machine arrived I was eager to try it out so put the bowl straight in the freezer for 8 hours. My first attempt was raspberry frozen Greek yogurt. After 40 minutes the mixture had not thickened and the motor was getting hot, so I stopped the machine and froze the mixture as it was. There is no timer on the machine and it will only stop when the mixture gets so thick that it stops the paddle from turning. I have subsequently found that the bowl needs to be in the freezer for AT LEAST 24 hours and preferably 48 hours when it first arrives in order to freeze the coolant within the bowl. It is very difficult to know this when first using the machine. I now wash the bowl in cold water straight after use and return it to the freezer and find I can get away with freezing for 24 hours. Secondly, the clear plastic cover cannot be removed for cleaning as it is an integral part of the power unit and I think this is a design fault. After my first attempt did not thicken I lifted off the cover containing the paddle and some of the mixture ran between the cover and power unit and it is difficult to clean all of this out. The instruction manual gives the impression that the cover can be removed as it says “wash the lid” when it can only be wiped. Also I find it can be quite messy pouring in thick liquids as the chute is quite small. Summing up, this machine is good value for money. However, Duronic needs to address the issue of the poor instruction manual, particularly the reference to the 8 hours freezing time for the bowl, as this would avoid many of the problems I encountered. Also Duronic needs to consider changing the design so the cover can be removed for cleaning.

I've been looking around for an ice cream maker for a little while, and I finally got this one a month ago. Me and dairy don't always get on so well together, and I wanted to have a go at making some dairy free stuff myself. My first attempts at making ice cream and frozen yogurt without an ice cream maker weren't so great, so I decided to splash out on a machine. I have to agree with the previous reviewer who said that they didn't expect it to work so well, as it was such a good price. I've been pleasantly surprised. I've used it twice so far, and it's a great machine. (Fingers crossed that it doesn't cut out the next time I use it.) I've only made vanilla ice cream (using two different recipes), but I'm looking forward to trying other flavours and making other frozen treats in the future. The Ben and Jerrys book gave me some good ideas, but, if like me, you and dairy don't get along, there's some great recipes to be found on the internet. I got the bigger model (1.5L), which is great, as the mixture fluffs up quite a bit towards the end of mixing, and I'm afraid of it overflowing the bowl and going everywhere. I should warn you though that the bowl doesn't fit in an average freezer drawer. If you have a chest freezer, it will end up taking permanent residence in it. Also, the finished product is quite soft, so if you want a firmer ice cream, you'll have to put it in the freezer for a few hours. It will freeze quite hard if you leave it overnight, like I did, so you'll have to leave it out of the freezer for about half an hour before you can eat it. I noticed that a lot of people complained about this (or similar) in the more negative reviews, but I think it's common enough. (If it were possible, I think I'd knock off half a star as the recipes that come with the machine are a bit vague about the actual process of making ice cream. I don't recall if the Ben and Jerrys book went into too much detail.) I think it depends quite a lot on what ingredients you use. Highly recommended. Just close the kitchen door and turn the telly up to drown out the noise while it's running. :)

First time using the machine, the bowl was in the freezer for around 24 hours and the ice cream mixture ready and chilled. I used the banana recipe in the instruction manual and even after 45 minutes being churned, it was still very much a liquid. I did some research and apparently you're meant to use fatty products so heavy cream, full fat milk etc but the recipe said to use skimmed milk which might be why it didn't set. So waited a while for the bowl to reach room temperature and gave it a clean and then when dried stuck it back in the freezer for a second attempt. Second attempt, bowl frozen for around 24 hrs. For the recipe this time, I used full fat milk instead of skimmed. At around the 30 min mark the ice cream was looking better, still a bit gloopy but getting there. All of a sudden the motor stopped. I felt the top and it was really hot so the safety cut off must have kicked in. In my video you can see the consistency of the icecream which caused the motor to overheat. Not really ice cream at all. I'd expect it to be much more set before any sort of overheating issues occur. If it can't do what is advertised and make ice cream in 30 mins then it's not very good and I shall be returning. The best this product can do is make porridge-like icecream in around 30mins but then the motor will overheat.

Easy to use and produces delicious ice cream - so far I have made lemon, ginger with stem ginger chunks, and masala chai ice creams, plus frozen yogurt. The bowl is compact and fits in my drawered freezer (yay) and the maker is easy to use and churns pretty quickly as long as the mixture is cold (so make sure you pop a cooked custard base in the fridge for several hours or even overnight). I have one minor complaint and one more annoying complaint unfortunately. The minor one is that it is hard to get the mixture into the maker while the lid is on - the opening to pour in is pretty small and at an awkward angle, meaning that you have to pour very precisely to get the mixture into the bowl and not make a mess. You could take the lid off but then the mixture would freeze on contact with the walls since there is no stirring action. The larger complaint is that the capacity is 1.5L but it cannot actually churn 1.5L of mixture (I have tried with 1.4L, not 1.5L). Even with a stone-cold mixture and a fresh bowl from the freezer the maker continues to produce small ice crystals but no change in mixture texture otherwise, and after about 40 minutes the motor cuts off due to overheating from trying to mix such a large volume (once cooled it can work again but with this large volume it again fails). I have tried this twice and now am back to making smaller volumes. Not a problem most of the time (you can even just take a larger volume and store the other half in the fridge and freeze a day later) but for Christmas prep it did make things more annoying.