Musso Lussino - the trip to Italy is over, but still costing me money!

Musso Lussino Dessert Maker 4080 1.5 Quart Ice Cream Maker


My teenager went to Italy with her class this summer and came back addicted to Gelatos. We have had one of the Cuisinart Ice Cream Makers for years, but have never been completely pleased with the freezer bowl or the overall results of any recipe we have tried in it. I grew up with one of the original wooden-crank-turning-rock salt ice cream makers and remember the yummy results from using it, but I am not willing to invest the time to sit there and turn the handle for what seemed like hours to me as a child. I decided to move completely away from manual or freezer bowl solutions and find a machine with an actual compresser in it! I looked at the $300 Cuisinart automated machine, but didn’t like the reviews indicating cheap plastic churning parts and decided that we needed a more professional machine. After much debate with myself and hubby I decided on this Italian made Musso machine.

Some of the basics….

The Musso Lussino Dessert Maker 4080 is a thing of beauty! It is constructed of heavy duty stainless steel which they somehow managed to mold into a rounded shape that is quite attractive. It weighs 38 pounds and the bowl, the body, and the blade are all made of stainless steel. It can make up to 1 ½ quarts of ice cream or other frozen treat in as little as thirty minutes. After reading other reviews, I was worried about the size and was prepared to sacrifice counter space for this one, but it measures in at 12 inches wide, about 11 inches in height, and is 18 inches deep. With this size, I was lucky enough to find a cabinet for it to go in when not in use for the winter, but I will definitely keep it on the counter for the summer. I don’t want to be lugging a forty pound appliance back and forth – plus the curving stainless steel is so retro looking and I want to be very careful not to damage its good looks.

This machine runs on 100 watts of power and can really churn up a nice dessert. I was worried about the noise output, and although it does produce a sound, it is completely tolerable. I was still able to watch TV or have a conversation in the same room while the Musso works, but it did remind me of one of my first loud dishwashers. Because it has a compressor in it, think of one of the quieter window air conditioning units and then you will know what kind of noise level output this one has.

Included with the machine -

Instruction/Recipe book and scoop, plus a warranty card. This machine comes with a one year warranty from the manufacturer.

Using it……….

Despite its great looks and sophisticated Italian design, this is an extremely simple machine to operate! All I have to do is put the ingredients in it and turn it on. The Musso has two buttons – churn and freeze – plus a timer dial in the middle that goes up to an hour. It shuts off automatically when the timer is finished and the bowl stays cold for quite a while afterwards. The machine comes with a clear plastic top so we can peek at the progress without disrupting the temperature. It only takes about thirty minutes to make a frozen dessert, but I like to have it go for at least forty minutes for a harder ice cream. The timing depends on the temperature of the ingredients when you put them in and chilling the ingredients before hand will make it go faster.

The Musso Lussino comes with an instruction booklet which is loaded with recipes. The ingredients are listed strangely - for example: 2 cups plus 2 Tablespoons. I haven’t come across recipes written like that unless the two tablespoons were supposed to be reserved for a sauce, but that is not so in this case. Even with the strange measurements, the recipes are simple and easy to follow, but there is not one recipe for a Gelato! The book does explain in general that any of the recipes can be transformed to Gelatos by exchanging the cream for light milk. I am inclined to think that there is more to it than that and am still searching for a good Gelato recipe in the mean time.

The ice cream…

The ice cream is delicious! I like having a machine that can keep going from batch to batch without having to refreeze a bowl! Part of my problem with the freezer bowl variety machine was that it never seemed to get the ice cream cold enough to harden nicely. This one definitely gets there, but it takes a bit longer than the thirty minutes advertised. I would say it takes more like forty-five minutes to get the ice cream to the consistency I prefer, but everyone has different tastes and again, it depends on the temperature of the ingredients going in as well as the overall room temperature.

The clean up

The bowl is not removable in this machine. It is part of a smooth one piece design and must be cleaned out after each use. The stainless steel paddle is held in by a stainless steel nut. Unscrew the nut, pull off the paddle and clean them both. I like to pour warm water into the bowl and then sop it up with paper towels for cleaning. If eggs are involved in the recipe, then hot soapy water should be used and maybe a little bleach water. Surprisingly, cleaning this is not difficult despite the fact that it is not removable. I am the dishwasher queen, so if cleaning this doesn’t seem to be too much work for me then I doubt anyone will mind. I also hand wash the clear plastic lid and the clear plastic scoop that comes with that machine. I let it all air dry and then reassemble for another round.

Overall -

I am pleased! I love the wonderful results from this machine and my kids think I am amazing! I can trick them into thinking that frozen skim milk with a bit of chocolate syrup is ice cream and find that they aren’t asking for as many treats as they used to. I love the fact that this machine is so versatile and like trying different recipes with it. Even if a recipe is terrible, I don’t have to refreeze a bowl for another day before I get to try another one because with this machine, I can just keep going!

At $600, I think it might take a while to pay for itself, but eventually it might, and in the mean time we can have fun experimenting with it. The quality is obviously very high and I expect it to last for quite some time.