ALDI Stirling Ice Cream Maker

Great machine if you love ice cream – I love chocolate ice cream but it was becoming quite expensive so when I saw this on a trip to Aldi and, it was a reasonable price, I thought "Why not?" And I have to say, so far, I haven't regretted my purchase. I did have an ice cream maker already but, as good as it was, I was tired of the bowl needing to be pre-frozen for at least 24 hours. Not only did it mean I couldn't make and eat my ice cream quickly when the urge took me, but the bowl would take up too much room in my freezer so one with a built-in compressor seemed ideal. I have only made chocolate ice cream so far and it's turned out wonderfully. It makes just enough for my 1L containers which is very convenient. Little tip though; the chocolate ice cream recipe that comes with the machine isn't that great - it turned out too hard and too bitter - so I started using the recipe from the Breville ice cream maker which I found online, and which uses eggs and melted chocolate instead of cocoa, and it works amazingly! So yummy and easy to scoop. Just a little tip for you all. Another minor gripe is that, unlike other machines, it doesn't have an opening to add mix-ins, so you need to pause the machine and take the lid off, but that's not a huge thing - although it's worth pointing out that the manual is misleading in claiming that pausing the machine resets the timer (it doesn't) and that mix-ins need to be added during the mixing/freezing process - this last bit was particularly confusing as there is a mixing *and* a freezing process. Through trial and error I worked out it needs to be about midway through the *freezing* process. Anyway, I haven't used more expensive models, so I can't claim this is as good, or better, but I'm certainly happy and if you love ice cream and want a machine that does the job but doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars then I think you'll be happy too.

EDIT: I just noticed that Aldi will be selling this ice cream maker again on 28th December so if you would like to get one, now's your chance.

Great Compressor Style Ice Cream/Gelato Maker – Got one of these a week ago. Have used it every night since. Definitely a step up from the Krups freezer bowl type machine we've had for years for a few reasons. (1) When the machine stops and starts beeping, the ice cream already has a harder consistency than that produced by the Krups. (2) If you leave the machine on cooling mode for 10 minutes afterwards the ice cream is firmer still. As firm as you could ever wish for. (3) The ability to do multiple batches.

Some might baulk at the lower capacity (1L) but in reality it's not an issue for us. Although our old Krups has a larger capacity (1.5L) we still needed to make two batches because it didn't quite fit our favourite base recipe all in one hit. So we did one full batch followed by a small batch (which in reality was all the freezer bowl could probably handle having already warmed a bit after the first batch). With the new machine we now do two full batches with the same recipe.

If anyone's interested the recipe is the original Ben & Jerry's vanilla complete with uncooked eggs because I can't be bothered cooking a custard and then cooling it down. No one in the family has got salmonellae from using it in the 10 years we've been doing so.

2 large eggs 3/4 cup sugar 2 cups whipping cream 1 cup milk 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time. Continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Add the cream, milk, and vanilla, and whisk to blend. Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer’s instructions.

Used it as a base for two different flavours tonight - Chokito and then Choc Chip.