Cuisinart ICE50BCU

...Darren had bought me a Cuisinart Ice Cream Professional (ICE50BCU).

Cuisinart have been making professional kitchen equipment for over 30 years, they make everything from toasters, food processors and blenders, steamers, griddles, wok and slow cooker, for dessert, they make a waffle iron and ice cream maker and two coffee machines. Their products are rather expensive but a built to last (a five year guarantee is given on everything) ...
...birthday present I am keeping it, however if I was buying one myself, I would have probally spent a lot less.

For further reading of Cuisinart visit www.cuisinart.co.uk

All food prices are taken from mysupermarket.co.uk

Many thanks for reading. Anna  ... more

When I met my now husband 20 years ago and married him 4 years later he had perfect hearing, however since then his hearing has slowly deteriorated, or so I thought but this, it seems, is not the case. On a recent medical by his employer, his hearing is perfect, so it seems his hearing is non existent within the home! Selective hearing is what he seems to suffer from within the home, this belongs in the same category as Man Flu, the inability to use his voice box to answer a question, the loose of use of his legs once he gets home from work, and the panic attacks he suffers when the TV remote control is not glued to his hand. I have had a number of conversations with him and then a few days later he will ask me a question that was covered within that conversation, however, it seems I never have the conversations with him, I seem to be talking to Holly or one of the animals!

So a recent conversation went, oh I might treat myself to an ice cream maker for my birthday, no response, left if a few days then said forget the ice cream maker, I have seen one on my Fact Finders site, (you scan your shopping and receive points that can be redeemed against quite a few things including an ice cream maker), still no response.

So about a week before my birthday he was working near the J28 (M1) retail outlet. I received a telephone call from asking is there was anything I wanted from the cook shop that they have on site. Yes I said, I would like something that I could cook kebabs on. OK he says and puts the phone down. No mention of an ice cream maker was made. That evening he comes home with two carrier bags, one containing a griddle and hot plate to put on your cooker and the other containing two sets of barbecue tools. When asked why he had purchased two sets of barbecue tools he told me he didn't, if you spent over £20.00 you got a set free, why did you get two sets then? oh that's because they checked on the computer and found you were a regular customer, so they gave me two sets. Quite suspicious at this answer I left it at that. The following day I emptied the bags to put everything away and found a receipt in the bottom of one of the bags, went to put the receipt in the box that we keep receipts in but noticed an ice cream maker on it, but then I saw the price, a massive £279.00 less a managers discount of 10%. After I picked myself up off the floor, I just couldn't keep my gob shut, so when he came home from work I was waiting for him, let rip (ungrateful cow) his reply was damn they must have put the wrong receipt in the wrong bag, it was supposed to be a surprise, you've spoilt it now.

So Darren had bought me a Cuisinart Ice Cream Professional (ICE50BCU).

Cuisinart have been making professional kitchen equipment for over 30 years, they make everything from toasters, food processors and blenders, steamers, griddles, wok and slow cooker, for dessert, they make a waffle iron and ice cream maker and two coffee machines. Their products are rather expensive but a built to last (a five year guarantee is given on everything) and tend to be used in professional kitchens. I do love cooking and consider myself a fairly decent cook, this is complimented by using better quality cooking appliances, my saucepans are made of Titanium and cost around £400 about 7 years ago, they still look as good as the day I got them, however before this I went through about 5 sets of pans, either the handles fell off or the non stick came away, they just were not up to the job.

The ice cream maker

The ice cream maker is made of stainless steel, 21 cm high, 25 cm wide and 25 cm deep. It has a carry handle on either side for you to move it about, this is of course if you are a member of a weight lifting club as it weighs 13 kilos. It has a timer on the top which is between off and 60 minutes with a red light behind it that comes on when you turn the timer. Behind this is the motor arm. Within the machine is a round mixing bowl with a mixing paddle that connects to the arm, on top of the bowl is a lid with a 10 cm x 3 cm hole in for you to add any ingredients needed towards to the end of mixing. The maker contains a heavy duty compressor for freezing.

The machine is very easy to put together after each use and comes with a complete set of instructions along with a few recipes for ice cream, sorbets and frozen yoghurt. I have only used the basic ice cream recipe, but have just added different flavouring to it. Some of the more complicated recipes use eggs, which I am not quite sure about using in ice cream that I would give to my 2 year old daughter.

To make the ice cream.

Mix together milk, sugar, double cream and the flavour of your choice. Pour into the ice cream machine, turn the timer to the amount of time required 35 - 45 minutes for soft ice cream and 45 - 60 minutes for hard ice cream, when the mixing and freezing process has finished a you hear a ting. I tend to warm my milk and sugar together in the microwave for one minute so the sugar dissolves easier, whisk in the cream and flavouring then place in the freezer for a few minutes to chill. Pour into the machine, switch on leave the kitchen and close the door for about 30 minutes. The reason why I leave the kitchen and close the door is because when the machine is on it sounds rather like a pneumatic drill going off in your kitchen.

My husband said I could make the ice cream whilst we were having tea and we would have fresh ice cream for sweet afterwards. Not likely, I could not believe the noise when I first used it, there was no way we could eat tea with that racket going off, in fact we were shouting at each other to make ourselves heard, are you sure it should be making that noise my husband said, so I ended up ringing the shop where he had bought it from to ask them, the lady at the end of the phone could hear the machine going and said yes that is the right noise, it is the compressor working, freezing the mixture, the best thing to do is close the kitchen door and leave it alone. When finished the best was I can describe the consistency is rather like a Mr Whippy Ice Cream and stays like that even when placed in the freezer for a few days. When the machine is finished just remove the arm and lid, lift out the mixing bowl using the handle provided, use a plastic spoon to spoon the mixture out into your bowls or pots to put in the freezer. It can be difficult to get the mixing paddle out, so I tend to scoop out round the edge, which loosens to paddle and then scoop the ice cream off the paddle.

To clean the machine just wash the bowl, mixing paddle and lid in warm soapy water then place in the machine, ready for your next use.

How much does it cost to make ice cream.

Well the machine cost my husband £251.00, so I don't think it will ever pay for itself! The ingredients to make the basic vanilla flavour ice cream cost 0.14p for milk, £1.07 for the cream, 0.19p for the vanilla flavouring and 0.12p for the sugar, total cost of approx 800ml of vanilla ice cream is £1.52. If you make a basic lemon or orange flavour, this cost slightly more as the flavouring costs 0.89p and I add the grated rind of an orange or lemon at about 10p each. To keep costs down I use Elmlea cream because it is slightly cheaper and has 30% less fat, I also use silver spoon light sugar, this costs slightly more than normal granulated sugar but as it is a lighter sugar, I only use 100 grams instead of 175 grams of normal sugar. This amount makes about 800 ml of ice cream which fits into 2 plastic tubs (Chinese/Indian Takeaway size plastic dishes). One pot serves 2 adults and one toddler. Working out the calorific count using the lower versions, it works out at 2078 per 800ml of lower fat ingredients round about 519 calories per serving, using the higher fat ingredients 2959 calories per 800ml about 739 calories per serving. I would compare the taste to Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream and this costs £3.93 for 500 ml, so it does work out cheaper, however if you buy Tesco standard vanilla ice cream, this costs £1.15 for 2 litres of vanilla flavour, it works out a lot more expensive.

What flavours can you make

You name it you can make it. I have recently got myself an Ice Cream machine recipe book and flicking through this I am going to try and make Christmas Pudding flavour ice cream to have after our Christmas lunch. You can also make sorbets and frozen yoghurt, the cook book shows a beetroot and allspice sorbet, if I have any beetroot left from the garden I might give this a try and I quite fancy giving the Coconut and lime ice a try. Once you get the hang of making the basic recipe, you can start adding your own ingredients, when I started writing this review this afternoon, I decided to make a Black Cherry ice cream. I used the basic recipe, omitted the vanilla flavouring and added a tin of Black Cherry pie filling. I stopped writing to make tea and tidy up etc., for dessert I gave my black cherry a go and it didn't taste too bad, my husband had a spoonful but doesn't like cherries so he didn't like it. I was expecting the cherries to be mashed up to a pulp from being mixed, but was pleasantly surprised to see them all still intact.

Am I happy with the machine.

Yes, despite the price, I have used the machine about 6 times now, you do get used to the noise that it makes and it makes a nice addition to my kitchen machinery. Maybe during the winter it might not get so much use, but during the summer it should certainly come into its own. I also envisage it getting a lot of use once Holly starts school and wants to bring school friends home for tea, I will be able to make some fresh ice cream for them. You can control what ingredients you use. It does recommend using full fat milk, but I have only ever used semi skimmed milk and it seems to work fine. You can't beat the taste of home made ice cream with fresh fruit on just on its own.

You can buy ice cream machines from as little as £24.99, as to how and whether these work I have no idea. You can buy this ice cream maker on Amazon.co.uk for £259.99. As this was a birthday present I am keeping it, however if I was buying one myself, I would have probally spent a lot less.

For further reading of Cuisinart visit www.cuisinart.co.uk

All food prices are taken from mysupermarket.co.uk

Many thanks for reading. Anna 

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