I bought the Ice Cream Maker Cuisinart ICE-45 Mix It In Soft Serve machine for the sole purpose of making my own Disney Dole Whips at home. After some research, I found that the Dole Pineapple Soft Serve mix is the exact stuff that Disney uses in the parks. The only problem is that the bag is intended to be mixed all at once and not in small portions. I used 2 1/3 cups of water and 1 1/3 cup of mix to make a quart of Dole Whip which just fits into this machine. Chill mix for 30 minutes before pouring into the soft serve machine. For optimal freezing, I keep the freezer bowl in my deep freeze and leave it there until I’m ready to make some ice cream. Regular freezer/refrigerators don’t get as cold as the deep freezes. After 20-25 minutes in the Cuisinart – I have the perfect texture for soft serve ice cream. I made the mistake of turning it off once and the ice cream got so hard that the machine would not restart. I also have tried the Frostline Chocolate and Vanilla soft serve and was very impressed with those mixes (1 cup mix, 1 3/4 cup water). I should try my own home recipe one of these days but the mixes are cheap and very easy. I don’t care to use the “mix it in” feature of this machine. It works, but its easier to just sprinkle toppings by hand and some toppings get too hard to eat.
