Gaggia Gelatiera 74500N Ice Cream Maker

I have been looking at getting an ice cream maker to indulge myself and did some research. This ice cream maker has been recommended on several cooking websites. I finally bought the Gaggia as "retail therapy" in a sudden moment of madness and although it is more expensive than the ones that you have to prefreeze, I have no regrets.
It arrived well packed and is ready to use after standing for 12 hrs to allow the coolant to settle because it has a built in freezer. It is well built and is a nice rectangular shape, but is not easy to move about so it is better if you have an allocated space for it on the desktop.
It is extremely easy to operate, there are 3 buttons: 1/ to start freezing 2/ timer 3/ to start the mixing paddle.
To make ice cream, you pre-cool it for 5 mins, start the paddle, pour in the ice cream mix and you get lovely ice cream 20-30mins later.
It comes with a removable bowl that fits inside the fixed bowl. If you use the removable bowl you have to put a little bit of alcohol in between the fixed and removable bowl to help conduction, it says "alimentary alcohol or spirit" in the instruction book, I use gin and have no problems. You can make ice cream in either the fixed or removable bowls and so can have different batches one after the other. I have so far only use the removable one as I think it is easier to clean as you can take it out of the machine. It is cylindrical in shape and easy to clean once you have removed the paddle.
It can make 600g of ice cream in one go, which translates to roughly half the volume of the bowl in ice cream mixture as the ice cream expands as it freezes and air is added by the mixing process.
The instruction booklet comes with some classic Italian ice cream, sherbet, long drinks and granite recipes, but there are plenty of variations that you can find on the internet. I have been randomly changing the ingredients and have yet to make a batch that doesn't taste wonderful. e.g. I ran out of cream and made chocolate ice cream with double the quantity of milk instead of half milk and half cream and it still turns out lovely, an excellent texture, smooth with no lumps or bits of ice. I have also tried mango-tofu ice cream with soya milk just to try something different and found that just as yummy and less rich (better for the waistline).
Best of all you don't have to plan a day ahead to make ice cream, all you need is to get the ingredients and switch the machine on 5mins before you have the mix ready. Press the button when you serve dinner and it will be ready when you finish your main course, perfect for having people round!! The only thing is, you can hear it churning, so if you can't bear noise at all, you will need somewhere out of the way to put it, but then it is only for half an hour.
If you have never made ice cream before (like me), you will probably find a blender handy for making the ice cream mix. Other than that, it couldn't be simpler. You have total control over what goes in the ice cream, fresh ingredients, no preservatives and you can have whatever you want, whenever you want!! Perfect!!

I am delighted with this wonderful machine. Having had ice cream makers before that have not done the business, I hesitated to plunge again. It does what it says - excellent ice cream swiftly and easily, simple to operate, easy to clean. The main bowl capacity is about 1pt of finished ice cream, enough for two greedies. It is more fun to use than those without a freezer unit and well worth the extra money. Making (and eating) ice cream is carefree! Best recipes from Ben & Jerry book qv.

You don't buy an ice-cream maker like this to save money - it is definitely cheaper to go and buy a lifetime's worth of luxury ice-cream from the supermarket. However, the sheer fun of experimenting and serving your own wonderful concoctions to appreciative visitors is worth every penny. When freshly made, the ice-cream consistency is superb and even fairly plain ingredients can be transformed into something special tasting.

I bought my Gaggia Geletiera about 8 months ago and it has performed well over that time. It comes with two paddles, one of which can be used directly in the unit container and the other of which is used in conjunction with the removable bowl. If you use the removable bowl, you have to add about 25 ml of strong "alimentary" alcohol (some of that vile spirit that tasted so good on holiday but now tastes like paintstripper will do nicely) to the unit container for efficient transfer of heat away from your ice-cream in the bowl without freezing up. There are on-off buttons for the paddle and the chiller unit and a timer dial which gives up to 30 min of mixing time. It's very simple to use, trouble-free and the result is consistently good.

One slight snag is if the timer switches off or the paddle stops because the ice-cream is too stiff, you have to be around to deal with it or the chiller will freeze your ice-cream solid. Getting all the ice-cream out of the removable bowl with the supplied spatula is a little messy due to the cold liquid alcohol on the outside, the embedded paddle of awkward shape on the inside, and the rapid melting of any ice-cream remaining in the bowl after removing the paddle. However, the Geletiera works well and I am very pleased with my purchase.