My sister and I have gotten past the basic kid stuff of sibling rivalry and have slipped into a stage that I call sibling revelry; we revel in each others accomplishments and in the good stuff that each of us experiences. Every so often, however, one or the other of us will get something that the other wants. So it was when I got my ice cream maker (Cuisinart Flavor Duo Frozen Yogurt and Ice Cream Maker), my sister went shopping for her own. She ended up with the Simac Gelataio Junior 4060 II which makes a bit less than a quart of ice cream at a time.

My ice cream maker makes two flavors at once. My sister didn't seem interested in that feature. What she most wanted was a machine that didn't require prefreezing a container. My sister has limited storage in her house, and certainly does not have the extra space in her freezer that my unit asks for.

The Gelataio Junior is a great machine with an outstanding design. It arrived at my sister's house last week, and we gave it a thorough test run this weekend. We made banana ice cream with walnuts, cherry ice cream with chocolate chips, cherry sorbet, frozen daiquiris, avocado ice cream, and a chilled tomato soup.

The Gelataio Junior is a more compact machine than the Cuisinart, but it still takes up a good deal of space. It makes making frozen stuff really simple. Just blend up the ingredients and pour into the machine. No need to chill down the ingredients (though you will probably grow impatient if you pour in a hot mix). Then press the chill and churn buttons. You're good to go. You can have a soft serve dessert ready to go in as little as 20 minutes. Keep checking if you like something harder. We found the machine got a pint sized, room temperature batch of ingredients to a consistency we liked in about 45 to 50 minutes. There is no possibility of burning out the machine if the mix gets too hard. It has an auto-stop mechanism that will turn off the motor if whatever you're fixing gets too hard to churn. Serve at once, or keep the cover on and the frozen material will hold for about 15 minutes at the consistency you've got it to. If you'll be longer, you may want to scoop it out into a separate container for freezing. These features make it great for dinner parties where you may not be able to exactly time your dessert course.

We also tried this machine out for frozen daquiris. This machine was brilliant. We used a basic daquiri recipe from the frozen drinks section of the instruction book. There are also recipes for all kinds of ice cream from banana to avocado, sorbets, frozen yogurts and sauces. The book also offers suggestions for substitutions in recipes and making your own recipes. So far, all the recipes we've tried here have been wonderful. The avocado ice cream was surprisingly good.

If the machine has a couple of drawbacks, it is that it took a little practice to line up the top motor. If this isn't done correctly, the paddle won't rotate. With a bit of practice, however, it's easy to do. I suspect children would have caught onto it faster than we did, but even we two mechanically inept sisters had it happening before too long.

The machine is also a hefty 33 pounds and a bulky 15.5" x 12.5" x 12.5". This is not something you're going to want to have to move around a lot. If you're a real ice cream addict with lots of kitchen workspace (yeah right!), I could see devoting a permanent spot on the counter to the machine. My sister has it out in her storage room which means it won't get as much use as it would otherwise. (Probably best for diet reasons.)

The Gelatio has a 160w or about 1/4 HP motor. It runs on 120V-60 Hz flavored electricity. The motor is not as noisy as the one in my Cuisinart, but you would not want to stand next to it while you're talking on the phone.

We had a great time playing with the Simac Gelataio Junior, loved the recipes in the book and plan another weekend this summer of frozen fun. If you're looking for a machine that will easily make small batches of dessert, this is the one to look at.





Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 199