I was given the Hamilton Beach Half Pint Ice Cream Maker 68550E as a gift. With the Hamilton Beach Half Pint Ice Cream Maker 68550E you can make your own fresh ice cream with healthy ingredients in less than twelve minutes. It comes with two freezer bowls so you can make two different kinds of ice cream treats one after the other, and it even includes a recipe booklet so you can learn how to make an array of different frozen treats. I have made frozen yogurt, and ice cream in here. Every time I use it everything has been delicious, and the great thing is, is that I know exactly what is going into my desert. Performance It makes delicious tasting ice cream every time I use it. I like that I can choose the ingredients that go into it, and the flavor that I want to make. I know what's going into my ice cream, and how healthy or unhealthy it is. I have never had any trouble using this ice cream maker. It's easy to use, easy to store, easy to clean, and an overall great machine. Durability For the inexpensive price, it's pretty durable, and I haven't had any problems with it. I can't see it breaking anytime soon because it's not like I use it every single day. Ease of Use It's very easy to use and makes ice cream in under twelve minutes. The bowls have to be frozen, and then you just add the ingredients by following a recipe from the booklet. It works really fast so I wouldn't walk away from it. Ease of Cleaning You can't put it in a dishwasher, but it is easy to hand wash with hot water and dish soap. The mess comes right off and doesn't stick to the machine, so I have no complaints here. Capacity Each bowl doesn't hold a lot of ice cream, probably only enough for one to two people. But it comes with two bowls and it only takes about 6-12 minutes to make each bowl of ice cream. I mean I usually don't eat a lot of ice cream, so it's enough for me and my boyfriend to share. If you want huge amounts of ice cream then I would buy a bigger ice cream maker, but I like this size. Design It has two different bowls so even though they are small you can still make a decent amount of ice cream. It's a nice design for how inexpensive it is, and it serves it's purpose so I can't complain about it. I think the color is cute as well, and it isn't big or bulky. It fits nicely underneath my cabinet.

xheather570xx

Stroudsburg, PA

I bought the Hamilton Beach Half Pint Ice Cream Maker because I wanted to try making homemade ice cream for myself. I liked that it was a smaller sized ice cream maker, because I originally thought that it would take less time to make the ice cream, and I would be able to experiment with making different flavors quickly. One of the problems with this ice cream maker is that after removing the frozen bowl out of my freezer it began to defrost very quickly. So you really need to know what you are doing and have all of the ingredients ready to go before taking the bowl out of the freezer. It was very easy to use and make the ice cream. The other problem was that it did not make a lot of ice cream. I feel that it made less than the half a pint that it was advertised to make. I was a little disappointed, because the serving that it did make did not even feel enough for just me. Cleaning was easy, but I wish it was dishwasher safe. Overall, it is a cute ice cream maker for very small portions of ice cream.

Girly777

USA

After my first ice cream maker got corroded and leaked out its gel during storage, I found this one at a great price and bought it. It comes in several fun colors, is cordless, and takes up very little space on the counter or in your freezer, which I especially love since I rarely have a lot of freezer room to spare. The small size means it's easy to keep the bottom half in the freezer all the time so it's always frozen and ready to make ice cream with. The small size can be a disadvantage if you want to make enough to feed the whole family, but you can always make a batch, transfer it to a container, and then make a whole new flavor with the second bowl. As other reviewers have said, you really need to make sure everything is very cold to get everything to freeze well. I think that because of its small size, it thaws out pretty quickly. Wrapping it with something insulating like a towel seems to help though. Overall, it's a fun and easy way to make ice cream and easy enough for kids to help with it as well. Capacity Small, but nice size for a quick spur-of-the-moment treat.

WDMmom

West Des Moines, IA

I purchased this as a gift for my niece who was going away to college. She's a huge ice cream fan and loves the homemade ice cream I make so I figured this would be a taste of home for her. Plus the half pint size is just about the right portion. I actually bought one for myself as well so I could test it before I gave it to her and could give her some hints and tips. I discovered that it is best to keep both bowls in the freezer at all times so you can have ice cream whenever you want it. I also discovered that it's super easy to make a very simple ice cream. You can just place cream (or half and half), a bit of sugar, and the extract of your choice (I gave her a full variety along with the ice cream maker, ranging from vanilla to orange, lemon, rum, maple, mint, and coconut) in a deli container, shake it up, and pour it into the bowl. Then you just snap on the mixer lid and let it work for about ten minutes and then you're done. As long as you eat with a plastic spoon you can eat right out of the bowl. This makes a lovely gift for those who enjoy homemade ice cream but who don't have a lot of kitchen space.

capers01

Vernon Rockville, CT

We love ice cream at our house so why not make our own? I got this for christmas and my first thought was, wow this is small. It hardly makes enough ice cream for 2 people. So I guess I just didn't realize how small it would be. I need to buy the larger capacity. I liked that they included recipes to get you started on different flavors of ice cream to try to make. I liked that you could add whatever you liked to it and make whatever flavor you could dream up. You have to be quick with the bowl once you bring it out of the freezer to get the ingredients in it right away for you to get the best consistency of ice cream. If the bowl sits out too long before you start mixing the ingredients, it will thaw and you will have more of a milkshake than ice cream. I also don't like that you have to hand wash the entire unit so it doesn't fall apart on you and so that you don't ruin the freezing liquid that helps the bowls stay cold. Ease of Use It seems easy enough but you have to be quick so the bowls don't thaw out Ease of Cleaning hand wash only, not my favorite Capacity Wish it held more and made more

texasjewel

Spring, TX

I received this as a Christmas gift. I think it makes a great gift that's not too expensive, but still really fun and unique at the same time. It's super easy to use (no physical churning required) and the ice cream it makes is yummy and really good for one person or someone who is trying to exercise portion control when eating ice cream. I like using the recipes it comes with and also just doing something quick like making frozen yogurt. My only complaint is that it feels like a lot of prep work for the small amount of ice cream that is actually made. My package only came with one bowl, so after each use I have to immediately clean it up and put it back in the freezer overnight so I can make more ice cream the next day. The mixture used to make the ice cream must also be planned out in advance because it needs to be chilled so that it will freeze properly. Another thing is that it can be a little noisy. Despite these factors, it is still a fun, cute product that makes yummy ice cream and is great if you want homemade ice cream but don't want to invest in an expensive ice cream maker.

lucyjae

Snow Hill, NC

We like this product quite well, just enough for a treat. This works best when your freezer is zero or below and freeze the bowls for 24 hours, make sure your ice cream mix is very cold as well. You can hardened the ice cream or eat as soft serve. Performance It does it's job as expected and makes a very pleasing tasting batch but you have to help it just a tad sometimes by freeing the already frozen ice cream in contact with the chilling walls of the bowl. Durability So far, so good. Ease of Use This machine does not fly solo, you do need to keep an eye on it to make sure the blending paddle is staying seated in the bowl. Ease of Cleaning No major issues to report. Capacity I think the capacity is excellent if you are buying it for the reason of having a treat and not for a major ice cream therapy session or party for ten. I like it perfectly well because I can have a little and not be tempted to have a lot. Design I do wish they would figure out how to combat the paddle staying seated and helped the paddle to redistribute the first to freeze ice cream at the bottom of the bowl back into to the yet to freeze mixture.

LesleeLong

Torrington, CT

it may be that even after reading the instruction booklet multiple times i still used this item incorrectly, but i doubt it. its very simple--mix ingredients in bowl and press button on lid. yet it did not work at all! i attempted to make ice cream with this product multiple times, and every time i ended up scraping a block of solidly frozen dairy product off the sides of the bowl...

ariannep

Ithaca, NY

It's fun to take the bowls out of the freezer and make a quick easy snack for my kids. I don't use cream, I just use whole milk and add my own healthy ingredients. If my kids crave chocolate, I'll add Ovaltine powder! Because I don't use cream, the ice cream is of a more watery consistency but my kids still love it! And I feel better because it's healthier too. It's probably not the best ice cream maker out there, but I got it at a great deal so I am satisfied with it. And as the other reviewers said as well, you can only make small batches at a time, but that's perfect for my lil kiddos! I got the one that came with 2 bowls.

babyjmama

San Gabriel, CA

There's a method of making your own ice cream I used to do that involved mixing with your hands with the ice an ingredients in plastic bags- and it works MUCH better than this product. I couldn't get good ice cream out of it. After a few tries it was better than the first mess (my freezer wasn't cold enough to make the bowls as cold as they needed to be), but I never enjoyed the product very much. For one thing, I felt like I had to eat it super fast before it melted. I tried adjusting the recipes, too (a couple recipes are included) with minimal success. The worst part about this product, though, is that even if I get it to work, it still isn't very good. It can only mix one serving at a time (or two small servings) so enjoying ice cream with friends or family is almost impossible. Young kids will fight over who gets the first bowl. After you mix one serving, you can move on to the second bowl- but good luck going back to the first because it has warmed up too much. So you can't make much at once. And each serving/bowl takes at least 10 minutes- maybe a little less if you have a big batch mixed up and can pour it in- but I always had to leave it running for a long time. And it's loud. We wanted to have family ice cream and movie night, but the ice cream maker bothered the movie-watchers with it's noise! Don't bother with this product, no matter what price you get it for! I will say that a single user interested in turning a cup of yogurt into frozen for a quick snack may have a better time with this product than I did.

jal1986

Grand Rapids, MI