Product Review: KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment - KICA0WH

As long promised to you, I offer my review of the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment.

While vacationing in Seattle last summer, I was a guest at a dinner party where the hostess served homemade cinnamon ice cream on top of apple pie. Wow, what a knockout combination! When I found out that she had some new-fangled Cuisinart ice cream maker that didn't require salt or ice, I had to know more about it.

During my research, I found that KitchenAid has an ice cream maker attachment for their stand mixers that works on the same principle. The key to this new generation of ice cream makers is the insulated bowl. You put the bowl in the deep freeze overnight or longer. This cold, insulated container takes the place of the salt and ice in the ice cream freezing process. I already own a KitchenAid stand mixer, and I wished to avoid taking up more counter and cabinet space with gadgets, if possible. So, I eventually decided on the KitchenAid attachment instead of the Cuisinart ice cream maker.

I've continually heard good things about the Cuisinart, and I include a link here for your convenience. But, I cannot offer anything but hearsay on the Cuisinart.

Since Christmas, I have been the owner of the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment. I told my husband and kids that I would have to practice quite a bit to get the recipe just right. They were going to have to be good soldiers and eat all of the practice batches. They didn't disappoint me.

I started out with Rebecca's cinnamon ice cream recipe without the cinnamon. It had been so good in Seattle that I was pretty sure I couldn't go wrong. The first batch was a hit!

It was so rich and creamy. I just knew that we couldn't consume something like that too frequently. So, I began to tweak my recipe. To be honest, I am still tweaking, but we haven't had a bad batch yet. I'll be posting some of my recipes and hints here in the future.

It is important to understand that homemade ice cream is different than store bought ice cream. At the end of churning, it will be the consistency of soft-serve ice cream or maybe an extremely thick milkshake. You can eat it soft right away, or you put it in the freezer to "ripen" and harden. After being fully frozen, it is very hard. See my tip about softening prior to serving.

The bottom line is that I have been very, very pleased with the performance of the KitchenAid attachment. My current recipe makes almost a half gallon of ice cream, and that is just about all the bowl can reasonably hold. I wish it were bigger, so I could make a full gallon at a time (we have a big family). All of the pieces, except for the bowl itself, are dishwasher safe. The bowl washes up easily in warm soapy water. Usually I have to wipe some ice cream off the post of the mixer also. But, overall, cleanup is pretty simple.

Highly recommended!

Here are some of my related posts:

Homemade Ice Cream is Too Hard
Making Ice Cream: Some Useful Tools
A Good, Basic Ice Cream Recipe to Start With
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About The CommonSenseMom's Homemade Ice Cream