In article >, gary_w1
@hotmail.com says...
> I saw one of these manual ice cream makers for sale, and I wondered
> whether I should buy it or hold out for an electric model.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with the Donvier manual?
>
The Donvier ice cream makers are great. We got one each of the pint and
quart sizes back when (maybe 15 years ago). Because of expanding
waistlines, we use them less than we used to, they still work fine. The
quart size gets used more, but the pint size is handy and quicker to
freeze if you only need a small quantity of ice cream, sorbet, frozen
yogurt, slushy drinks or whatever. One nice thing about the Donviers is
that once the insert is frozen, they're totally self-contained (no
electricity, salt or ice required). If there are kids around, they can
pass the unit around and take turns cranking. The units store very
compactly (no electric motor), they're simple to put together, easy to
clean when you're done, and there are no fiddly little parts to get
misplaced. The cranking is not strenuous; as others have pointed out,
you don't have to crank constantly, although we found that constant
cranking can improve the texture of some recipes. Like any other
appliance, you have to be willing/able to learn from your mistakes and
tweak your recipes to get the most out of it, but as I recall, the
recipes that came with the Donviers were good starting points.