I have a crank one that I've never used, still in the box years later. I have a Cuisinart that I rarely use, and a Vitamix that I use often. The Vitamix makes ice cream in less than a minute after adding ingredients. Plus, the Vitamix can be used for processing so many other items.

I've used it on and off for years. Love it.

Novelty. Making ice cream is an involved and rather long process.

Only good if you want to make flavors you can’t readily buy.

Passing the crank machine on to little cousins.

Please recommend an electric one to buy. Not too expensive. I think I saw some new gelato machine. Heard Vitamix was good, too.

Thanks all!

Our Donvier was a novelty but we use our 2qt Cuisinart ice cream maker is used all the time. We generally have at least one kind of ice cream in the freezer at any given time. I’m pretty lazy, so generally make a simple base without eggs. That way we can stir it together and freeze. Once it’s done, it’s best if it freezes for a few hours. We most often make vanilla and stir stuff like mini chocolate chips or tiny peanut butter cups. So it does take some time but not much work.

It’s a novelty for me, and I cook and bake a lot. Not sure why, but it is a long process. Not that it’s hard, but you make the base, have to chill it a long time, then process in the very frozen bowl, then freeze again. And now one flavor a day, due to the bowl needing to be very frozen. I once tried to batches in a day and the second didn’t work out.

We were given one as a gift and never use it. It's more expensive than just buying premium ice cream and the canisters take up precious freezer space.

Anonymous wrote:We like our Donvier and use it a lot sometimes and less at other times. It’s very easy to use- you turn the crank once a minute or so for 15 or 20 minutes. We like the freshness and the fact that we know what the ingredients are.

You can make frozen yogurt by just dumping a large container of frozen yogurt in and cranking it. Sooo good!

Sorry, meant to say, a large container of plain yogurt.

We like our Donvier and use it a lot sometimes and less at other times. It’s very easy to use- you turn the crank once a minute or so for 15 or 20 minutes. We like the freshness and the fact that we know what the ingredients are.

You can make frozen yogurt by just dumping a large container of frozen yogurt in and cranking it. Sooo good!

My mom gave us a hand-crank Donvier ice cream maker she picked up at a garage sale many years ago and to this day we use it all. the. time. DH especially loves it and will happily sit in front of a TV show and crank away for the 15-20 minutes or so it takes. It's not big so it doesn't take long to freeze the ice cream (especially if you start with cold ingredients) and also doesn't make too much, so we can eat it all in a couple days which we like. And it's a great way to try new flavors. In a bit he's going to be making pawpaw ice cream from some pawpaws we picked today.

I think we use it a lot more than we would a bigger ice cream maker with a lot of parts and that plugged in. Part of what we like is its simplicity; it's so easy to put together, use, and clean. We just tuck the canister in the back of our freezer so it's always chilled and ready to go when the mood takes us.

Novelty. Find a used one

Used like mad when first got then put away for year or two and then bring out again. Would only get if you have space to store.

Novelty if you don't want to wait a few hours each time you want ice cream.

How convenient is it to use? Just a novelty or something you use often? I enjoy homemade ice cream but wonder if we will use it for long? (We don’t have little kids). Thanks for sharing your experiences!