Indiegogo staffers are putting crowdfunded products to the test in our new series of honest reviews. In this edition, we review a new portable ice cream maker that everyone’s talking about. Does it live up to the hype? Read on as we put it to the test — and find out how you can enter to win one for yourself in our joint giveaway!

I love ice cream, and so does my family. I was thrilled when the team at Cocinare offered to send their new Cocinare KRUSH to Indiegogo for a product review.

Making ice cream on the job is definitely what I imagined my life would be like when I was a kid!

Unboxing

My KRUSH arrived thoughtfully packaged. I was pleased to see that this new kitchen appliance wouldn’t be a countertop eyesore or difficult to store.

It comes with a minimalist case that zips up with all of the parts inside and can easily tuck into a cabinet or drawer. 

First Look and Impressions

Straight out of the box, there’s a double-walled steel bowl, which you should pop into the freezer right away because it needs 12 hours for the water in those walls to solidify. That’s the ice part!

Then, there’s a ribbed plastic holder for that bowl when you take it out for the churning stage, an attachment on top that is a window for watching the churn, and the mixer/motor attachment that goes on top. There’s a lid to place on the bowl once it’s full of ice cream. Plus, a charging cord and case. That’s it. It’s simple enough to use with a six-year-old and a three-year-old who are keen to make some ice cream, with no sharp parts.

Oh, and one more cool thing — a little insulated travel bag, for taking ice cream on the go. On Cocinare’s social media account, another reviewer took theirs on a yacht, but I’m taking it to my mom’s house. 

Cocinare also sent me a code for a 12-month membership to its Cocinare App, which has recipes for ice cream and beyond, meal plans, and nutrition information. I only have a couple of critical points to make in this review, and this is one of them – rest assured, I’m very happy with the delicious ice cream I now have, and will soon make more of it, but I wasn’t able to actually access the app after I entered the code. I needed a password, but wasn’t able to create one with the email address I used for the code, and so on. I do think Cocinare will help me out, and this won’t be an issue for long, but I was short on time, so I found a basic recipe online and forged ahead.

Setup

First, a crucial step I missed was to charge the Cocinare KRUSH. It comes with a USB charging cord, but the Quick Start Guide did not say that the device must charge for 2-3 hours prior to using the appliance.

Unfortunately, I responsibly froze the bowl for 12 hours, grocery shopped, and whipped up a classic vanilla ice cream recipe. Then, I took the bowl out of the freezer, assembled it with the other parts, and plugged it in. My son and I watched a green light slowly flashing through the viewing window, but the start button had no effect. 

My Quick Start Guide references a User Manual, but I didn’t receive one of those. If it’s on the app, I can’t access that either. So, I found a YouTube video by another reviewer, and luckily he knew what to do: charge it for 2-3 hours before you use it. If you don’t, you’ve poured  soupy ice cream mix into the 12-hours-frozen bowl that will defrost if you don’t put it back into the freezer. 

Luckily, the recipe made extra, so I could pour out my mixture and had enough to try again in two hours. Because the steel bowl was so cold, a thin layer of my mixture had already “frozen” around the inner sides of the bowl. An unexpected taste test! My son was content to sample that new “ice cream” and we confirmed that our recipe would be delicious.

Then we rinsed out the steel bowl and popped it back into the freezer for a couple hours while we waited for the Cocinare KRUSH to charge. 

Putting it to the Test: Making Ice Cream

A note on our recipe, which was not Cocinare’s: we made a dairy mixture with whipping cream, whole milk, and refined sugar. We figured we couldn’t mess that up, so it was a good baseline to try out the machine. For my mom, I’m excited to try out Cocinare’s dairy-free recipes with alternative sweeteners like maple syrup.

Not less than 2.5 hours later, we removed the charging cord and re-assembled the steel bowl and ice cream maker, filling it to the MAX line with vanilla ice cream mixture. This round was much more exciting — a soothing violet light shows the process inside and we could watch our ice cream churn through the windows.

After twenty minutes, the Cocinare KRUSH turns itself off, so you don’t have to set a timer or wait around. But you do want to put it back in the freezer for a while. The churning leaves it thick but soft, as all ice cream makers do.

We’ll have ice cream tonight after dinner. We’re planning to add cookie chunks and maybe some walnuts, but it’s important to add those after churning, not before. 

Final Thoughts

We had a few hiccups during the setup process, but it’s safe and easy enough to use that I won’t need instructions next time.

I like the Cocinare KRUSH a lot for its small footprint, simple process, and the fact that it makes ice cream in any flavor I could dream of. Thumbs up!

Cocinare KRUSH is a fun and easy way to make DIY ice cream!

Show your support for this exciting new innovation, and back the Cocinare KRUSH now on Indiegogo if you want to get it before it’s gone!

Want a chance to win your very own ice cream maker? Enter our joint giveaway with Cocinare KRUSH here.