Cuisinart ICE 30-BC Pure Indulgence 2-Qt Automatic Ice Cream, Frozen Yogurt and Sorbet Maker

Home Made Ice Cream with Cuisinart ICE 30-BC Pure Indulgence.

Something you may not be aware of – until you own your own home ice cream maker, is just how easy and fast it is to make better ice cream at home than you can buy at the store!                  In a nutshell, I have found Cuisinart make a number of ice cream machines that rate amongst the very best home frozen dessert machines! The 30-BC Pure Indulgence is the best 2qt capacity of the freezer bowl style ice cream makers under $100 – and it’s fully automatic!           It can also make other delicious frozen desserts … like frozen Yoghurt and Sorbet.                        It will even make a very nice Gelato, although its not specifically designed to do so!                    You can truly ‘indulge yourself’ 🙂                                                                                                          In 25 minutes – if the canister bowl is ready and ingredients pre-chilled – you, your family and friends can be enjoying Your frozen dessert creation!

As you will see, the ICE 30-BC Pure Indulgence has over 12,000 fantastic customer reviews ….. for an overall 4.6 Star rating. IMPRESSIVE! The sheer number of saisfied customer reviews / feeedback is a very powerful witness that attests to the 30-BC Ice.                                                  I would recommend buying the Ice 30-BC any day of the week … as long as, and this is important- you have room in your freezer to store the 2 qt freezer bowl.                                        Of course, if your budget is larger, a self refrigerating real Ice Cream maker like the Cuisinart ICE 100 compressor Ice Cream making machine is worth considering.

Benefits and Features

• From our assessment and feedback of thousands of happy home ice cream makers, clearly the Cuisinart Ice 30-BC is the best Freezer 2 Qt Bowl Ice Cream Maker (2 litres) for under $100.
• 2 Quart Capacity. Yes, 2 Qt of pure yum!
• Smart and stylish look with a brushed stainless steel finish.
• Freezer bowl is rotated by a powerful motor in the base of the unit. This is important as it provides greater torque that is required as the mixture solidifies and ensures the Ice 30BC does not ‘stall’ towards the end of the mixing process.
• The dasher (mixer) remains stationary and the mix is forced through it by te rotating bowl. This is a very effective way to turn the mix into the finished product.
• Very simple controls ... an ON / OFF switch 🙂  A supervised 6 year old can make amazing ice cream, frozen yoghurt, sorbet …. even gelato with this unit, it’s that simple to use.
• Easy-lock lid – transparent so you can see what is happening inside.
• Strong, removable bowl – measures 7.8″ (19.7 cm) across and 6.4″ high (16.3 cm).
• Large ‘pour in chute’ opening in the lid makes the addition of extra ‘goodies’ while making your special recipe an easy thing to do.
• 3′ power lead with a cord storage space at the bottom of the unit…… almost reason enough to buy it 🙂
• A heavy base with rubber nonslip feet – Don’t laugh, you don’t want your machine to vibrate off the counter!
• Excellent 3-year limited warranty
• BPA free
• Cleaning is a breeeeze.
• Which leads me to:
• A wonderful “family gift”. Making homemade ice cream with your children is a lot of fun and who ever is lucky enough to share in the results will think you are a super chef!
• A much higher quality ice cream maker than all others under $100. You will regret saving that $30!
• Owners of the ICE-30 rave about it!

Full Review of the Cuisinart ICE 30-BC Pure Indulgence

You can literally spend many hundreds or even thousands of dollars on what is clearly a luxury purchase ie a ‘real’ ice cream or gelato maker that has its own built-in freezing unit.

This is probably going to be the only freezer canister style ice cream maker I’m going to review. My experience with this style of ice cream maker in the past has had its ‘issues’ lets say!     Based on this experience, and after using the Cuisinart ICE 30-BC, if you Love Ice Cream as I do, then the Cuisinart ICE 30-BC Pure Indulgence ice cream maker is truly worthy of your consideration!

I’m here to ‘sell’ you on the joys of making your own ice cream, so I’d much rather have you learn to work with the quirks of a really good freezer bowl unit like this one, than depend on Dairy Queen. Not that I haven’t consumed a few DQ root beer floats in my day!

Some features that  make the Cuisinart a ‘Best Buy’ in the under $100 freezer bowl ice cream machines.

From an ice cream lovers perspective, it MUSTmake excellent ice cream, frozen yoghurt and sorbets. It does !!

From purely an aesthetic / visual perspective, it is a great looking unit. The cord stores away when not making delicious home made ice cream, leaving the unit neatly sitting on the counter  – ready to spring into action – again!

It is super simple to use – did I mention that already? On, or Off!

The Cuisinart Ice 30-BC Pure Indulgence has a powerful motor and a strong dasher (mixing paddle). As ice cream freezes it gets hard to churn. This is pretty obvious right? You would think it would be a no brainer that manufacturers would use motors that don’t overheat and dashers that don’t snap in their frozen dessert makers. Can you say that for a $40 ice cream maker? You won’t have either problem with this unit!

The ICE 30-BC has a 2 quart capacity. This is useful for two reasons. The obvious one is that if you have a large family or like to throw parties, 2 quarts is a lot of ice cream, frozen yoghurt or gelato. Even if you are only making a 1 quart batch, the 2 quart capacity is very useful.            The most common complaint with freezer bowl units in general is that they often don’t stay cold long enough to make more than soft ice cream or at worst, cold soup.                                    Not the case with the Ice 30-BC!

A second freeze bowl can be purchased separately, or as part of a two bowl kit when purchasing the Ice-30BC. Can be very handy, as long as you have the room in your freezer.

Something to consider …. making a smaller quantity, like 1 quart, or even half a quart (1 pint), will have the mix freezing harder and faster. You can also experiment with a lot more flavors and special ingredients quicker!

This has been my experience! Making a smaller quantity – like a quart of ice cream in a two quart bowl, the extra cold mass of the larger bowl really helps deal with the chilling / hardening. The faster it freeeeeezes, the finer the crystals, the smoother the texture.          Keep in mind homemade ice cream is best eaten right after it is made … or within 2 – 4 hours of hardening in your freezer. After that it typically gets very hard – not that that is the end of the world as you can thaw it some before serving. Still, you may be better off making smaller quantities…….. especially if you are watching the waist line 🙂

…. and, I always like a great warranty …. like the 3 year limited warranty that the ICE 30-BC has!

Tips

• For peace of mind, buy the Pure Indulgence Ice 30-BC from a company with a no hassle return policy like Amazon. As soon as you receive the unit, open it carefully, put the bowl (level) in the coldest part of your freezer, -18 deg C (0 deg F) or lower ( usually in a back corner of your freezer) for 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, do read the simple instructions! After the 24 hours, fire up the Cuisinart and make your first batch of home made, high quality ice cream!
• Consider the cost of ice cream ingredients. Using high quality ingredients can be more costly than they expected. This is true and not true. With simple foods like ice cream, you will taste higher quality ingredients. This is particularly true of freshness, one of the big benefits of making ice cream at home.
• When you make ice cream, use the unit in the coolest room in your house. If it is 85 degrees in your kitchen and you try to make ice cream, you may not get the best results.
• With freezer canister units like the ICE 30-BC, for best results, you absolutely have to pre-chill your ice cream mix before commencing the process. Not only will this ensure your ice cream actually freezes, it will freeze faster which is not only more convenient, but actually results in better ice cream. Smooth ice cream comes from minimizing the size of ice crystals, fast freezing helps ensure this. Experiment with cooling down your mix first in the fridge and then for maybe 30 minutes in your freezer. A faster way to do this is the Jeni Bauer Ziploc bag method which you can read about here.                                    This is much less of an issue with ice cream makers that have built in freezer compressors like this one.
• As suggested above make a quart or less at a time. Few ice cream recipes are fussy. Just divided the ingredient amounts as needed to make a quantity less than 2 quarts.
• Be aware though that even taking all these measures, every so often, the ice cream just doesn’t freeze as it should. Why? Your guess is as good as mine!
• With some freezer bowl units, the freezing capacity of the bowl seems to lose its mojo over a number of years. This unit is the best of its type and I would not expect that to happen within the three year warranty period. Many users have had machines 10 years without issue!
• The ‘auto off ‘ sensor may become touchy. Keep the unit clean 🙂
• Keep in mind, even it your unit lasts the 3 years of its warranty and you paid $100 for it that’s still potentially a lot of ice cream for a small investment! Expect many tears past the three years that the warranty covers.
• Download and check out the manual – and yummy included recipes – before buying to ensure it sounds a good fit for you.

Customer Reviews

The Cuisinart ICE 30-BC Pure Indulgence Automatic Two Quart Frozen Ice Cream, Sorbet and Yoghurt Maker is one of the most heavily customer reviewed small appliances on the web.         I have found them to be overwhelmingly positive – on Amazon alone it has over 12,500 reviews, 96% positive, with 92% rating the Cuisinart Ice 30-BC as 4 star or better!

Positive Reviews ….

• In a nutshell the vast majority of reviewers – 96% – reported that the Cuisinart Pure Indulgence 30-BC simply worked as advertised. It allows you to make homemade ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt etc.., in a simple and straightforward manner.
• The units rectangular shape, cord storage and lid lock make it easy to store. The stainless steel finish looks great and is very easy to clean. It has a small footprint on your benchtop.
• The custom recipes that are included are very good. You can read about them here. But of course the beauty of owning a frozen dessert maker (and visiting our site!) is that you can experiment endlessly. It’s fun to try and create your own recipes when it comes time to have dessert because you never know if you may stumble across a wonderful combination of ingredients. Anyone can become an ice cream making expert with this machine, and you will likely find yourself coming up with some of your own ideas – taking full advantage of the Cuisinart Ice 30BC.

Here is short video from Cuisinart that will show you how easy the ICE-30BC is to use.