Nostalgia MDF200 Automatic Mini Donut Factory

OMG this thing is the greatest!! I bought this for my girlfriend's daughter for xmas (and what I mean is, I bought it for me...) It works GREAT! Disregard every review that says it doesn't work well. They don't know how to use it and probably should just go buy doughnuts... and stay away from sharp implements. Batter consistency is the key. If you follow the recipe in the book EXACTLY (as you should any recipe), the batter will be *PERFECT*. Perfect batter, if you take a spoon and turn it sideways, will take about three seconds for the blob to drop an inch.... very slowly. I did find that in order to get the doughnuts to flip correctly on their own, you need to overfill the unit with oil by about 1/16 to 1/8" above the fill line. If you follow the recipe and make sure the oil is above the 'fill' line at all times, you can literally walk away from this thing and come back and find 40 mini doughnuts waiting for you! If you do so, put a plate on the end, as this thing will pump out so many doughnuts it will overflow the little bowl that comes with it.

First off, lower your expectations! This is a toy, not a $3000 high end machine! That being said it's just too fun! The doughnuts from the recipe included taste light funnel cakes! Some of the doughnut do fall in the machine and you have to fish them out, but who cares! It's a blast watching that little thing go!

I was well aware that I wasn't purchasing a mini-donut machine that would compete with the $3000 machines at the fairs, what I was looking for was a functional toy of sorts that could make some edible treats and I could entertain the grand kids, and with that I was satisfied. I found the key to making the machine function properly was the proper batter consistency. If the batter is mixed too thin, the machine makes blobs (mini-funnel cakes)and if the batter is too thick, the machine won't drop a ring of dough consistently. After figuring out the right consistency, we were off and running, the trick I found was to add the milk last in small amounts until you can manually drop a ring by holding the dough dispenser in your hand over the mixing bowl and once you are satisfied, install the dispenser into the machine. All this sounds like a lot of work but it was entertaining for the kids and they enjoyed the treats and excitement of helping make the donuts. Basically I knew what I was purchasing and it was what I had expected for the money. The only draw back I could find was it was too slow, and the kids got excited waiting for the next donut to drop. When I made some donuts for adults one time I would manually press the dispenser to dispense dough so I had a string of donuts flowing through the machine continuously but I used a wood chopstick to flip the donuts because the machine has only two trays that cycle though the oil for cooking. Some suggestions: (1) Proper dough consistency,consistency,consistency (2)use a wood chopstick to correct mis-placed donuts and to flip ones that didn't flip over(3)place paper toweling in the catch tray to absorb excess oil from the donuts (4) Mix a half batch of dough each time, unless you are feeding a army and have all day to spend. Bottom line I was satisfied and got what I expected for the money and it was worth the fun factor. Lou

Got this for Christmas. We have seen very similar ones of these working at fairs & some cafes. It takes a while to learn how to make the batter the right consistency to make good donut shapes, and some will scrunch a bit in the drop process if not properly mixed where there isn't really much of hole to where some may think it is just making blobs, but once you get past this learning curve, you can make very good donuts with this machine. The key is getting the right batter consistency (somewhat thicker than pancake batter) and helping the flipping process on some of the donuts. You do have to watch the donuts as they travel through the cooking process and flip some of them with an appropriate hot oil spatula to make sure they cook evenly on both sides. It is not a machine that you can just put the batter in and have donuts come out the other end like the description makes one believe. It does take a great deal of supervision and your own input into the process, for sure! Like I said, a learning curve that some may not be willing to put up with, but not really that bad for fresh mini bakery style donuts you can make at home. This machine is NOT a kid item due to the fact you really need to watch the process and somewhat multi-task to get the donuts to come through properly and working with the hot oil, and it takes longer than described as well to get the donuts to come out. Ours has worked fine as far as the conveyer pulling the donuts out, so far. Since we've only had it since Christmas, we haven't used it that much so an update will probably be coming later to this review if the conditions change, but for what it is, it is a fun weekend morning activity to make some fresh breakfast donuts and the aroma of such will definitely wake up the house. Update, Christmas 2012: After a couple more uses, anything that did work on this machine stopped working. The only thing really going for this machine was the timing for the doughnuts being moved in the oil to the dispenser (sort of like the Krispy Kreme concept, but the conveyor stopped working totally and continually jammed in the dispensing process and the lumped "dough" is overcooked and/or too greasy. Even though at first they all didn't turn properly and some had to be done manually in the process--all turning stopped now and gets stuck. Like most all the other reviewers, I now say, don't bother, don't waste your money. Perhaps someone, someday will actually make a workable home version, but really if they do they will be biting into an easy independent as well as many franchise businesses. For now it is still, if you want a home doughnut maker and have the room & considerable more money, buy a low-end or used professional one.

It is very difficult to get the batter to be the right consistency in order to make it shaped like an actual donut. Its fun and neat to watch it come out but overall it doesn't really make donuts that look like donuts.

I cannot tell you how much fun this is! Not only does it make tasty little donuts, the kids have a ball using it, and its a lot of family fun! Very easy to use and its small and compact, easy to store.

The idea of this project was great, but the fryer did not work properly at all. I should have expected this as every Nostalgia Electric product I've purchased is faulty and unable to be used as described, this I've stopped buying them. The diet portion worked wonderfully, but the batter dispenser did not work properly at all. Extremely difficult to clean. The plug kept talking out of the appliance end socket. I should have used the money for this and applied it to the commercial model.

The donut maker performed as advertised. Makes tasty perfect little donuts. The quality of the machine was the quality expected of an item like this made 40 years ago.

no es tan facil de usar como pense y aun no he podido hacer una receta que me quede rica, lo recibi con una pieza floja que no he podido ajustar y eso altera toda la cadena de produccion, seguire haciendo intentos pero no estoy tan satisfecha con el producto como quisiera y no hay un centro de servicio en donde vivo que me pueda resolver el desajuste

Acabo de recibir la máquina y estoy detectando que es una máquina usada, entiendo que yo adquirí una máquina nueva y este no es el caso, quisiera el apoyo de Amazon para resolver esto. Gracias.

Not at all what I had expected. the donuts were very slow going through the machine. I made the donut mix exactly to the recipe in the book that came with the machine. I followed the instructions exactly on how to cook them. They tasted greasy, not turning over, burnt my finger's couple of time's, they kept missing the tray, not something I would like to serve my guests. Very messy. Not happy with the product.

Première ment la mini machine a beigne a déjà été utilisé donc je vous la retourne sur le champ . Moi j'ai acheté quelque chose de neuf et non usager . Je demande à être rembourser ainsi que tout les frais qui accompagne l'achat et le retour de cette appareil Je suis une cliente vraiment pas satisfait de cette situation ,je suis a obligé de mettre une étoile pour continué sinon aucune étoile aurait été émit . Je n'ai pas essayé cette machine. Manon Deschenes

can hardly wait till christmas