I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for ICE CREAM!

You may remember a little while ago, I posted about a review from CSN stores that I was going to be doing. I cannot tell you how excited I was last Wednesday when I opened my door and saw that Purolator had delivered my much anticipated Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker!

I decided that Friday night would be the perfect time to bust it open and give it a try. So, I washed all the pieces on Thursday and put the freezer bowl in the freezer so it would be ready to go. Let me tell you, I had a hard time waiting for the dude to get home to make our ice cream because I was so anxious! But, I knew that he would want to try it as soon as it was ready, so I decided to be patient.

Then when he got home he told me he'd rather wait and make it later in the evening so we could enjoy it after we finished doing some work in the garden and around the house. Let me tell you ... I felt like a kid on Christmas eve, wondering if Santa would ever come!

Finally, 8:30 p.m. rolled around and we were ready to go. We decided to make a variation of cookies and cream ice cream, using thin mint cookies. Ask me how it is possible that I still have some thin mints left in my freezer after buying six boxes from my niece back in February, and I will not have an answer for you. Somehow, though, I still had a box and thought it would be absolutely delicious.

The machine comes with an easy to follow instruction manual that also includes some great recipes (I cannot wait to try their very berry frozen yogurt!) but I decided to go with SnoWhite's vanilla ice cream recipe for my base because well, I trust that girl, and when I need a new recipe, she's the one I turn to.

I could not have imagined that making ice cream would be so incredibly fast and easy!

I just mixed my ingredients together ...

And then setting up the machine was a complete no-brainer. I think I could have easily done it even if I hadn't read the instructions!

Just set the frozen bowl on the base,

Place the mixing arm inside...

And put the lid on!

Plug it on, press start, and pour the mixed ingredients in.

I left it to mix for 30 minutes, until it was almost as thick as I wanted it...

...and then I added the cookies.

Another five minutes and it was ready to go.

The ice cream was delicious and ready to serve as a "soft serve" type ice cream immediately. Had there been any left, we would have frozen the rest in freezable containers for (very near) future use as a hard scoop ice cream.

We decided to share with our neighbors upstairs, though, so the whole batch was gone in no time at all.

The dude even dressed it up with an extra thin mint in each bowl.

Lucy and the Fabulous Dude give the Cuisinart Automatic Frozen Yogurt Ice Cream and Sorbet Marker FOUR thumbs up (actually 12 thumbs up if you count all the thumbs of the people who we shared with)!

The machine was very easy to clean and disassemble. As soon as the freezer bowl was washed and dried, I stuck it back in the freezer where it will make it's permanent home so that it is waiting and ready to go for the next time I get a hankering to make ice cream. Which quite possibly might be tonight.

If you are an ice cream fanatic, are looking for a way to beat this early summer heat, and don't have an ice cream maker, I highly recommend this machine! In fact, I think you should scoot your booty over to cookware.com immediately and order yourself one. It's even on sale! I really have a feeling that we'll be having a little too much fun with it this summer. I've already got a long list of ideas for flavors rattling around in my head!

Thanks again to CSN Stores for providing me with this ice cream maker to review!