BestStuff: 21st Century Ice Cream Maker

The first time I made old fashioned homemade ice cream was my last. Sure, the finished product was better than any store bought brand, except Cherry Garcia, which frankly should be considered a controlled substance, but the process was akin to churning butter. By the time I finished, I had blisters on my hands from the cranking, and I had killed a whole colony of slugs with the mounds of rock salt needed just to freeze the stuff. No disrespect intended, but I truly suspect the Amish may somehow be behind the concept of ice cream making.
Since that time, I've had no desire to return to Mayberry to make ice cream, content instead to score a pint (or two) of Ben and Jerry's when needed. But recently the folks at William Bound Ltd called and told me they had a product that makes homemade ice cream in under 20-minutes--no effort required. Needless to say, I was anxious to put it to the test.

The ice cream maker, dubbed The Chilly, was invented by an Irish physicist who spent seven years trying to figure out how to make homemade ice cream like his grandmother's, without a lot of work. As a fellow Irishmen, I can say that it's like us to spend years trying to make something hard, easier --even if it takes us 7-years to do it!

I'm happy to report that those seven years were not spent in vain. Chilly is a winner. On the outside, Chilly looks like a stainless steel soup pot. However, inside its walls is a saline solution that you freeze for about 8-hours before you make a batch of ice cream. Once the saline (inside the walls of the Chilly bowl and its lid) is frozen, you simply prepare your ice cream mix in a separate bowl and pour it in. Then replace its lid, put it in the refrigerator, and twenty minutes later as advertised, you have 2 quarts of homemade ice cream or yogurt.

So far, I've I made three fool proof batches of great tasting ice cream without even breaking a sweat. Chilly fits easily in the freezer for storage. Chilly also makes a great wine bucket and you can even use it to make cold soups like gazpacho or dips.

Despite a chilly $79 retail price, we're giving The Chilly a BestStuff award for Best Consumer Ice Cream Maker of the Century.