Rival 4 Quart Ice Cream Maker...Make Ice Cream at Home

When it comes to ice cream makers, I usually buy the cheapest models around mainly because we're not real big ice cream eaters (Popsicles, yay!). We may use them, always in the summer, three to four times before they always burn out or fall apart. Then I go into the spiel about how I won't buy another and we'll just buy the ice cream we do eat at our grocer's in the freezer aisle. Yet, every year, usually on a hot day, my daughter starts with "Man, it would be good to have ice cream right now!" I agree and go into "Oh yeah, and hey, it would be fun to make some!" and the cycle starts over. Eventually, I decided to buy one that might actually last more than one summer, yet still be priced right for us, and after looking around I settled on the Rival 4 Qt. Ice Cream Maker.

The Rival 4 Quart Ice Cream Maker is different from others I have used because it is more of a square shaped unit, inside of round. I always keep seasonal items such as this stored away in the box when not in use and it seems to take up less space that the other models I have used over time. That's always a plus with me. This unit consists of a blue plastic bucket that is used to hold the ice and rock salt for churning, an aluminum cylinder container for holding your ice cream ingredients, a paddle for churning of the ice and salt, a white plastic lid and finally, a motor. It retails for about $20 and I bought mine at Walmart but I have seen these at Target and other stores as well.

Putting this together to use sounds a bit complicated, but it is really easier than it seems. And the included instructions are written in a way to make it pretty much a step by step process. The first thing to tackle is the ice cream ingredient container; add your ingredients to about 3/4 full (because the ice cream will need room to expand). Put the paddle and see-through lid on, then lock into place (by turning it like you would close a lid on a jar). It's really important to make sure this is locked tight because you do not want to risk any salt seeping in during the churning process. Have the ingredient container placed in the center of the big blue bucket. You will need to add on and align the motor until you are able to lock it into place. Finally, you can start to pack your ice and rock salt around the ingredient canister into the blue bucket. Then, you keep adding as much ice and salt as you need as you go along, after turning the unit on. After the first time (of doing this) I could do it without even glancing at the instructions. The one part of this unit that I'm not exactly thrilled with is that there is no ON/OFF switch. To turn it on and off you will have to plug it in or unplug it. However, one part I am thrilled about is that it has a safety feature and will turn itself off if the motor gets too hot. I've burned through several ice cream maker motors more than likely from overheating, so this is a nice feature to have.

It'll churn until it gets too thick to keep churning, basically when it's "ready". You'll then need to unplug it. It makes 4 quarts and takes about 30 minutesor so to churn that amount. The ice cream comes out a bit like soft serve ice cream. You can make it harder though by either placing the ice cream ingredient container in the freezer for a while, or even in the unit itself by rinsing out the blue bucket and then filling it completely with ice & rock salt layers and closing the lid for a few hours. You could, of course, just scoop the ice cream into another container and then place that in the freezer for a while, too. I'm not a major fan of soft serve (although my daughter is), so I always scoop out most of it for freezing.

While this ice cream maker is running, you might want to keep it in a different room because it is really loud. We've always made ice cream on the front porch; works great for me because I don't have to listen to the insane grinding noise but can still hear it well enough from inside the house that I know it's still working.

When it comes to clean up, it can be a pain because the instructions say "do not ut pieces in dishwasher". All the pieces are fairly easy to clean, but there are quite a few of them.

A few recipes come with the unit, in the instructions and on the box itself. I sometimes buy mixes made for these type of ice cream makers to really simplify things, but mostly my daughter and I like to make my great grandmother's peach ice cream with ours. The quality of ice cream is pretty good; there are not a lot of those icy lumps in the mix which is something I've had a lot of in other inexpensive models I've used.

This is the first inexpensive model of an ice cream maker that I have owned, gave it a bit of light use, and it still works perfectly. I've had it for coming on 3 years now and have used it maybe 20 times. That may not seem to be a lot, but you have to remember I have never had a machine that would last for half of that time before. Another nice thing about this machine is that it tends to pay for itself after a few uses. It's much cheaper, I find, to buy the ingredients and make my own than buying the equivalent in ice cream at the grocery store. It's been a nice little ice cream maker for me, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting a working inexpensive model.