I made the scrumptiest dessert today.

Years ago, on a whim, I bought a Donvier halfpint ice cream maker. I had never used it believe it or not. I'm famous for buying kitchen gagdets that just end up gathering dust. And to think I almost got rid of it when I moved, but decided last minute to keep it because it took so little room.

The Donvier halfpint is a hand turned inexpensive ice cream maker. It's composed of 2 parts. One part consist of an inner cylinder that's filled with liquid that you store in your freezer. The other part is a plastic crank.

Today I decided to try it. I took it out of the freezer and poured in some cream, a packet of Splenda and a little vanilla extract. I put in the plastic crank and sat in front of the TV turning the little handle. Much faster than I would have expected the whole mess turned into smooth wonderful "soft serve style" vanilla ice cream.

I was impressed.

I cant wait to try other variations like chocolate.

What I like about this is that's it's small and compact. My model makes only a cup at a time. So there will be no temptation to pig out. In any case, I was told that ice cream made with no sugar doesn't do well in the freezer. So making it fresh everytime makes sense.

I found their website, so you can see what it looks like. They only seems to have the bigger size though. It says it takes 20 minute to make, but my small model took much less. Barely 5 minutes.

http://www.donvier.com/products/icecream.html

You can also find the instruction booklet online which contains a few recipes.