I purchased this over a month ago and we have used it 5 times already. We have made Oreo icecream twice, strawberry icecream, brownie icecream, and turtle pecan. We just use the vanilla recipe in the book and add whatever you want in it the last 5 min of mixing time. And it only takes a total time of about 30 min. The machine is also quieter than what i expected. I made sure my bowl was in the freezer for at least 24 hours and i havnt had any problems with the icecream getting thick. Also the icecream is really good once it stops making in the machine, but if you want the consistency of it out the store i recommend putting it in a bowl and freezing it for a couple hours. 2 quarts fed 4 of us and had a lot left for the freezer also.