Deni 5400 Scoop Factory Automatic Digital Ice Cream and Frozen Dessert Maker

Advertised as new, but was previously open and broken

I order this for my son. He has really enjoyed making many different flavor ice creams. I also have one, and have enjoyed making many flavors. Easy to use and clean us no trouble.

We recieved this ice cream maker as a present, and it quickly became the most-used kitchen appliance that we have. It makes excellent ice cream and even better milkshakes from no pre-frozen materials but the canister, and is ideal for making ice cream and milkshakes to a custom diet (sugar free, low carb, no preservatives, with no-lactose milk, etc.) as well as for just experimenting with different flavors that you usually couldn't buy in a store. Some of our favorite recipies that we made up, modified from the basic recipies provided in the manual, included Chocolate Mint Oreo Shakes and White Chocolate Rasberry Ice Cream. The unit itself doesn't take up much counter space and some of the parts are machine-washable, although not the main canister that needs to be frozen. It's completely automated so no hand-churning is required and the motor is quite powerful, so it doesn't jam too ofen. The timer built in also lets you set it to go and not have to worry about watching a clock to stop it...in theory, anyway. More on that later.So those are the positives. As to the negatives, though, there's one really big one - the canister is fragile. After being repeatedly thawed and frozen the plastic casing gets brittle, and we've had to buy two replacement canisters over the course of a year and a half when the canister has fallen and shattered into pieces. Replacement canisters cost 2/3rds of the cost of an entire new unit. And the other very big drawback is that the inside plastic part that scrapes the ice cream off the sides of the canister as it churns is flexible plastic and doesn't quiiiite reach all the way to the edge, and so unless you constantly babysit the machine as it makes ice cream and scrape the sides of the canister with a metal spoon it will in a best-case scenario make very little useable ice cream in the center of the machine and rock-solid inch-thick ice all around the side, or else it will jam the machine and require you to chip away the hardened ice on the inside until it can move again. A slightly thawed canister actually works a tad better in the long run than a frozen solid one. And for minor nitpicks, the machine itself is pretty loud. And there is also, oddly enough, no "Off" button - you have to unplug the unit entirely to stop it.Despite those things, though, this unit allows us to make better-tasting shakes and ice creams at home than we could buy at a store (in particular since we use Splenda as a substitute for sugar,) and for cheaper too, and although it has some problems it's something I'd recommend to others.

Apparently the leaking problem has not been solved. I purchased the 5100 model several years back. I used it several times and then shelved the unit until today. Cleaned the unit and noticed the freezer bowl was leaking. A very small hole was allowing the freezer liquid to leak. Appears the bowl is made with very thin metal.

I got two just love them.

The canister leaked out of the box. Calling the number in the manual took me to a long chain of unrelated product offers, and never allowed contact with a the actual company. Don't buy this product!!!

very good !

So, I picked up the Deni Giovanna Italy model which looks almost identical to this one and even has most of the same specs except it does have an "off button" which the previous reviewer complained of her's lacking. I got it at a great deal so I figured I had nothing to lose. This particular model is replacing an old-school, rock-salt, let it run for 2 hrs kind of ice cream machine. I was FLOORED when my favorite chocolate ice cream recipe which usually requires a min of 1 hr to churn into ice cream only took 10 minutes total.Seeing the issue that the other reviewer mentioned in regards to the ice cream freezing to the side caused me to take some preventive measures. I let it run for 5 mins, stopped it & scraped the sides & then let it run the other 5 mins. With about 2 mins left on my timer I noticed it was starting to build-up again so I used a hard plastic spatula & held it against the inside of the canister while it was turning & this did the trick in scraping the sides & preventing build-up. If I was using a recipe that required a 20 min run-time this may not be too feasible. However, as stated above, my favorite recipe only required 10 mins run time total. All in all, I'm very pleased with my purchase & look forward to many ice-cream adventures with it!Here's the custard-style chocolate recipe that my family loves... [...]