WE LOVE this Ice Cream Maker. I am a Diabetic, and so wanted to be able to make low sugar, and also non dairy ice cream, so bought this and Vice Cream (recipe book for Vegan Ice Creams). I have 4 young children, and we have fun making it, and cannot wait for the beeps to tell us its time to enjoy - and we have all enjoyed every recipe.
The recipes that come with the ice cream maker are great also, and I would recommend reading through it, as it gives you tips and reasonings for how to get a good batch of ice cream.
I tend to take the mixing paddle out the second it stops turning, as it can be hard to extract your ice cream when it is frozen into it.
Also, I have discovered that if you boil water, and pour it into a bowl, then stand the metal ice cream bowl in it for a minute or less, you can then pour the whole ice cream out in 1 block. I then put it into a plastic tupperware box and re shape it, for freezing and storage - but actually rarely have any left after we have all sampled it (several times).
Only danger of having such a machine, is that the temptation to eat a lot of ice cream is there all the time!
I don't feel so guilty though if it's non dairy - as a fraction of the fat!!
After the 50 minutes is up, the ice cream is rarely frozen all the way through, so you can either leave it in, to be continually frozen for up to 1 hour, or extract it, as described above, and then re freeze it until you need it. We have discovered that it gets very frozen (no soft scoop rubbish here), so when you are going to eat it, take it out 20 mins prior!
The machine looks great on our counter, and take pride of place! 10 out of 10!!